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Bar Chat

02/05/2015

More on The Big Game

Baseball Quiz: Continuing with the basics, name the top ten in hits, all time. [I’ll give you Cap Anson at No. 7] Answer below.

Super Bowl Postmortem

[I’m the ‘wait 24 hours’ guy. It was impossible to cover the game in detail on Sunday night, but I guarantee what follows is the single-best write-up you’ll find anywhere.]

Playing in his record sixth Super Bowl, Tom Brady won his fourth title, tying Terry Bradshaw and Joe Montana, while earning his third Super Bowl MVP, tying Montana.

Brady was 37 of 50, 328, four touchdowns, two interceptions...101.1 rating. In his three postseason games, Brady threw for ten TDs with four INTs.

Russell Wilson was 12/21, 247, 2-1, 110.6. In his three postseason games, he threw six TDs and had five INTs.

Total yards: New England 377...Seattle 396

Yards rushing: New England 21-57...Seattle 29-162

Marshawn Lynch 24-102...LeGarrette Blount 14-40.

“This NFL season was spiraling toward its epic conclusion, each second seeming to come more quickly than the last, two of the game’s master tacticians trying to figure out how to manage what was left of a rapidly dying clock.

“Seattle, after a miracle catch by Jermaine Kearse, juggling a ball while on his back, was at the New England 5-yard line, with 66 seconds to go, trailing 28-24 in Super Bowl XLIX at University of Phoenix Stadium, still with one timeout left.

“On one sideline, New England coach Bill Belichick, arguably the greatest ever to do this, faced a grueling decision whether to call a timeout – he had two remaining – or maybe allow Seattle to quickly score to give legendary Tom Brady all the time possible to drive for a game-tying field goal.

“And on the other, Seattle coach Pete Carroll – five yards from becoming the first man ever to win back-to-back Lombardi Trophies and back-to-back finishes atop the AP college poll – appeared to have this game all but won with Marshawn Lynch, one of the dominating backs in the game at his disposal on a day when the battering ram would top 100 yards.

“What transpired next will live in the annals of this league for as long as football games are played. This series of decisions – including a bizarre call by Carroll to throw on second down on a route in the crowded middle of the field that will be second-guessed just as long – would result in Belichick and Tom Brady, the game’s MVP, making history with their fourth Super Bowl title together, and would culminate in Carroll giving a repeated, occasionally rapid-fire and awkward explanation of the thinking that ended up with rookie corner Malcolm Butler, a spare part all season, with the ball in his hands on a game-clinching interception in the end zone....

“ ‘I knew he was going to try me,’ Butler said of Wilson...as he met the media. ‘I’m pretty sure he knew I was a rookie. Who wouldn’t try a rookie?’

“Butler’s mere presence on the field looks like another master stroke for Belichick, whose place in the game was only further cemented by these four quarters of historic football. ‘Malcolm had a hot hand there in the fourth quarter, if you will,’ Belichick said of a player who was listed as fifth on the depth chart New England released before the game. ‘So we stayed with him.’

“Belichick said had Seattle run on second down and his team stopped it, he would have called a timeout rather than let them score, though that ended up being rendered moot. ‘We were in our goal-line with all guys stacked on the line of scrimmage and we were man-to-man on the three receivers. We prepare for that situation as part of our goal-line package.’....

“Carroll remained steadfast through his questioning. ‘You can ask all you want – we were going to run the ball and win the game, but not on that down,’ he said, but New England’s defense was clearly surprised.

“ ‘We were expecting the run again,’ said New England’s mountain of a defensive tackle, Vince Wilfork, who has anchored the Patriots’ run defense his entire career and might have played his final game. ‘When they passed at that point in the game, I was surprised.’

“Patriots linebacker Dont’a Hightower said: ‘I think everybody was expecting run. You’ve got Marshawn Lynch, who’s able to run the ball on the goal line or 1-yard line. So I think everybody figured it would be a run.’

“Patriots linebacker Jamie Collins said: ‘Why wouldn’t you give it to ‘Beast Mode,’ right?’

“Patriots defensive lineman Alan Branch said: ‘You don’t expect a team to pass the ball in the middle of your defense on the goal line.’”

As for Seahawks corner Richard Sherman, he said he was “not really” surprised by the play-call because “we’ve done it before.” Sherman added, “What I would have done is irrelevant. We went with that play, we trust our quarterback. And they made a play.” But of course all the Seahawks were really surprised.

“Wilson should not escape blame, because after all, he threw a bad pass and made a bad read – Lockette wasn’t able to rub off Butler as designed, which made the play far too risky. But it wasn’t about the play as much as it was about the play call.

“It was an insane decision. In a league built on passing, the Seahawks are built on a bruising running game. Lynch is easier to tackle than a rhinoceros, but only by a little. Even better for the Seahawks, Wilson could run the ball in himself on a zone-read. Trying to stop the combination of Lynch and Wilson at the goal line is a nightmare. Trying to stop Ricardo Lockette on a slant is what NFL cornerbacks are paid to do....

“At the end of perhaps the best Super Bowl of all time – after the Seahawks seemed to assert a dynasty; after the Patriots erased a 10-point deficit; after Jermaine Kearse gave new meaning to the term ‘crotch grab’ in Seattle – the Seahawks had a chance to clinch a victory in their style. They went against what they do best, and they will have to live with it for a long, long time.”

“Then there was Cris Collinsworth’s incredulity at Seattle’s decision to pass on second down with 26 seconds left....

“He could not believe the call – and caught the moment’s zeitgeist with a level of righteous astonishment that was as candid as it was engaging.

“ ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, after (Malcolm Butler’ interception). ‘But I can’t believe the call. I cannot believe the call. You’ve got Marshawn Lynch in the backfield. You’ve got a guy that’s been borderline unstoppable in this part of the field. I can’t believe the call.’

“Then he added, ‘I don’t believe it. I’m sitting here and I absolutely cannot believe that play call. If I lose the Super Bowl because Marshawn Lynch can’t get in from the 1-yard line, so be it. So be it. But there is no way.’ Here, he paused, and said: ‘I don’t believe the call.’....

“On Monday, Collinsworth said that he was speaking from his gut.

“ ‘What you got is, if you were sitting next to me in the my living room – that’s what I’d say,’ he said. He said he was so certain that Lynch would carry the ball that ‘my jaw fell open’ when he saw Wilson go back to pass. ‘I just thought the next sequence had to be a run especially because Lynch had just pounded them for four and a half yards.’”

“Pete Carroll was going to be the happy face of the NFL, the guy who put the fun back in the No Fun League. He was one Marshawn Lynch yard away from talking up his back-to-back championships with Jimmy Kimmel or Jimmy Fallon or David Letterman – or all of the above – and showing the world you can create a pro football dynasty while acting like a child loose in a candy store.

“All Carroll had to do was apply a little common sense to the final seconds of Super Bowl XLIX, and no, it wasn’t too much to ask. Carroll had already won it all with the Seattle Seahawks and the USC Trojans. He had earned the unconditional respect of his opponent, Bill Belichick, who knew Carroll as a closer who had inspired Seattle to ‘compete relentlessly as well as any team and any organization I’ve ever observed.’

“Carroll just had to make a decision any Pop Warner coach worth his whistle and drill cones would have made. Lynch was in full you-know-what mode, barreling his way through the New England Patriots and carrying the Seahawks to the league’s first two-peat since Belichick and Tom Brady pulled it off in a different life....

“But a not-so-funny thing happened on the way to a delirious flight back home. It rained on Seattle’s parade. Instead of notarizing his standing as Belichick’s equal, Peter Clay Carroll made the dumbest and most damaging call in Super Bowl history....

“ ‘It was a really good play,’ he insisted of the throw that was picked off.

“It was the worst Super Bowl play of all time....

“Carroll once had Reggie Bush on the sideline – instead of in his backfield – at the end of a breathless national championship game he’d lose to Texas. Other smart guys have done some really dumbfounding things.

“Gregg Popovich had Tim Duncan on the bench near the end of that disastrous Game 6 loss to Miami a couple years ago. Grady Little left Pedro Martinez on the mound in that Game 7 in 2003 at Yankee Stadium. Rick Pitino didn’t put a man on Grant Hill for that three-quarters-court pass to Christian Laettner that decided Duke-Kentucky in 1992 – maybe the greatest college game ever played.

“But this was the mother of all screw-ups. Pete Carroll, the successor to Dick Clark as the world’s oldest teenager, got all silly and reckless at the worst possible time.

“He cost his team the Super Bowl, and there was nothing even remotely fun about it.”

“Only Bill Belichick could look at a team that lost by 35 points and decide he has to steal their ideas.

“A year ago, the Seattle Seahawks vaulted to the top of the football world by dismantling Peyton Manning’s Denver Broncos, 43-8, in Super Bowl XLVIII. The Seahawks did it by forcing virtually all of Manning’s throws to be short, harmless tosses. That was all that Seattle’s fortress of a defense would allow – little passes in front of them that went for negligible yardage

“So when Belichick and the New England Patriots needed a strategy for Sunday’s Super Bowl, he chose seemingly the most irrational one possible: an attack based on those short, seemingly harmless tosses.

“It wasn’t the most brilliant game plan in history, but it may have been the most practical.

“New England’s dinking and dunking down the field was the football equivalent of driving cross-country because you’re afraid to fly. It took the Patriots forever to get to their destination, but they got there.... That strategy enabled them to overcome a 10-point fourth-quarter deficit against one of the greatest defenses in NFL history.”

“Through the headset, (offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell) called a pass play, as Coach Pete Carroll wanted. Quarterback Russell Wilson was intercepted, and the Seahawks lost, 28-24.

“Bevell became the goat, not the hometown hero. [Ed. Bevell grew up in Scottsdale, AZ.]

“ ‘That was the worst play call I’ve seen in the history of football,’ Emmitt Smith, the former Cowboys running back, wrote on Twitter.

“Countless critics were equally exasperated by Bevell’s decision not to give the ball to Lynch, nicknamed Beast Mode, who had rushed for 4 yards on the previous play and 102 in the game. Former NFL running backs now in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, like Smith, were most indignant.

“ ‘WCE!!!’ the former Rams back Eric Dickerson wrote on Twitter. ‘Worst Call Ever. Beast Mode in the backfield and you throw it?’....

“History appears determined to cement the interception as a play-calling blunder as head-shaking as any.

“ ‘I mean, shoot, it didn’t turn out the way I hoped it would, so of course I am sitting here saying, ‘Could I do something different?’’ Bevell said after the game.”

Following Kearse’s spectacular grab at the five, the Seahawks called a timeout with 1:06 left.

“Bevell called to hand the ball to Lynch, who ran to the left for 4 yards. The clock ticked. The Patriots could have called a timeout to give themselves more time on offense if Seattle scored. They could have let the Seahawks score immediately for the same reason.

“ ‘We would have used our timeouts if that had been a running play,’ Coach Bill Belichick said, though that still would have left the Patriots with just about 20 seconds....

“ ‘ We wanted to be really conscious about how much time was on the clock,’ Bevell said. ‘We wanted to use as much of it as we could. We had one timeout left, so we ran it on first down and changed the personnel up quick from it.’

“The clock ticked toward 30 seconds. The Patriots inserted their goal-line defense, front-loaded with stout linemen. The Seahawks had Lynch in the backfield, and three receivers.

“Bevell, speaking into a headset connected to Carroll and Wilson, called for a pass. It was what Carroll wanted, too.

“ ‘I told him to throw it because of the matchup, Carroll told ESPN in the locker room.

“To the Seahawks, the play would either be a touchdown or an incompletion, which would stop the clock. Seattle would have two plays sandwiching its remaining timeout.

“ ‘At that moment, I didn’t want to waste a run play against their goal-line guys,’ Carroll said. ‘Throw the ball, we’ll come in on third and fourth down, and we can match up. It’s a really clear thought.’”

“Pete Carroll’s confounding last-minute play call Sunday night will be dissected, debated and mocked for as long as they play Super Bowls. It might have been prodded by a sneaky-brilliant decision by Bill Belichick.

“With 1 minute, 6 seconds left and the Seahawks down by four points, Marshawn Lynch rumbled to the 1-yard line on first down. The Patriots possessed two timeouts, and the Seahawks had one left. The clock ticked down, and at first it appeared odd for Belichick not to exhaust one of his two timeouts. With the Seahawks on the doorstep, New England needed to conserve seconds for a desperation drive in response.

“Belichick’s choice to not use a timeout, though, made life more difficult for the Seahawks by complicating their play-calling options. It may have even convinced them to throw their ill-fated pass on second down.

“Imagine Belichick had called a timeout in hopes of saving seconds for Tom Brady. The Seahawks would have had enough time to hand off the ball three times without fear of the clock running out, particularly because they had a timeout of their own.

“But with Belichick allowing the clock to tick, Seattle’s calculus became more complex, especially as they used almost the entire play clock. They did not snap the ball until there were 26 seconds left in the game. If Seattle ran on second down and the Patriots stuffed them, the Seahawks would have needed to use their final timeout immediately, with about 20 seconds remaining....

“It’s possible, if not likely, that Carroll passed on second down because he didn’t want to be in a position where the Patriots knew they would pass on third down. And that reality arose because Belichick kept his timeouts holstered.

“Belichick would have known that Carroll didn’t want to box himself in on a possible third down, which is how the Patriots could have anticipated that second-down pass that Malcolm Butler intercepted to ice the game. Even with the ball on the goal line, the Patriots used three cornerbacks on the field. The third? Butler....

“Studying all of the permutations of the clock could be overthinking it. But as you rip Carroll for not running the ball at the goal line, credit Belichick for making him have to consider it, for making a tiny decision that had an enormous impact.”

As Post stat guru Neil Greenberg noted, “(The) call itself wasn’t bad, with Butler simply making a standout play to intercept the pass.

“So it would have been better for Seattle to simply give Lynch the ball from the 1? Maybe not. This season, Lynch got the ball five times at the opponent’s 1-yard line. He scored just once.

“Seahawks vs. Broncos, Sept. 21: Lynch loses one yard.

“Seahawks vs. Giants, Nov. 9 (first quarter): Lynch touchdown.

“Seahawks vs. Giants, Nov. 9 (second quarter): Lynch loses one yard.

“Seahawks vs. Giants, Nov. 9 (third quarter): Lynch had no gain.

“Over his career, Lynch has had 36 carries from the opponent’s 1-yard line. More often than not, he didn’t reach the end zone. He scored on 15 of those carries, or 41.7 percent of the time. On 12 of those carries, he did not gain a yard. On nine of them, he lost yardage.

“How do Lynch’s numbers from the 1 stack up against other running backs in the league? Not all that great. ‘Among 39 running backs with at least 10 carries from the 1-yard line in the past 5 seasons (incl. playoffs), Lynch’s touchdown percentage (45 percent) ranks 30th,’ reports ESPN Stats and Info....

“But how has the Patriots’ defense performed at the 1? Since 2000, Coach Bill Belichick’s first year, New England’s defense has been on the field 165 times with its opponent at the 1-yard line. Of those plays, 89 ended in a touchdown (53.9 percent). Four of those plays, including Sunday night, ended in an interceptions...Four other plays ended in a fumble.”

“The ring was being fitted for his finger. The plaudits were being written for his resume. The skeptical football world had finally opened its arms and was prepared to embrace.

“Then Pete Carroll was grabbed by ghosts.

“The coach of the Seattle Seahawks had a second consecutive Super Bowl championship in his back-slapping hands Sunday night, one yard from victory, football’s most bruising runner in his backfield, his fun bunch only 26 seconds from defeating the New England Patriots.

“At which point Carroll’s head swiveled, his eyes bulged, and he was suddenly transported from the University of Phoenix Stadium back to the Rose Bowl, back to the Bowl Championship Series national title game played in 2006, back into hell.

“Back then, with Carroll’s USC Trojans leading Texas and facing a fourth and two from the Texas 45 with 2 minutes 13 seconds remaining, he approved the ball being handed to LenDale White while Heisman Trophy winner Reggie Bush stood on the sidelines. White failed to gain a first down, Texas drove down for the winning touchdown, and Carroll was forever blamed for costing his team a third national title in a row in what was the biggest mistake of his coaching career.

“The headlines of history will be that New England’s Bill Belichick and Tom Brady each won their fourth Super Bowl championship, tying records for coaches and quarterbacks and perhaps cementing their legacy as the best such combo in NFL history.

“But just under those headlines will be the bold-faced reminder that Carroll might have handed it to them, just as he handed that title to Texas, this decisively successful champion to be forever haunted by two bad decisions. Call them the Ghosts of Ego Present, Carroll always thinking that he is smarter and trickier than everyone else, always walking that fine line, setting himself up for the inevitable fall.”

“ ‘Why wouldn’t you give it to Beast Mode?’ New England linebacker Jamie Collins asked, the way 70,288 people inside University of Phoenix Stadium were asking, the way 70 million viewers at home were asking, pleading, demanding.

“ ‘I think all of us are surprised,’ Seahawks receiver Doug Baldwin said.

“These aren’t second-guesses that are littering locker rooms, peppering the water coolers and diner booths of America this morning. This has nothing to do with 20/20 hindsight. This is about something more than that. This is about something simpler than that.

“This is about blowing the Super Bowl.

“And Pete Carroll blew the Super Bowl, and it really doesn’t matter that he was a stand-up guy about it, that he handled a horrible moment with dignity and maturity, that he answered every question, that he would tell his inquisitors: Put it all on me.

“No: Today, tomorrow, for as long as we will study this man’s legacy and as long as the final score – Pats 28, Hawks 24 – remains the enduring truth of Super Bowl XLIX, this is the only thing that will matter: Pete Carroll didn’t give Lynch one shot, two shots, three shots to gain that final yard, to finish off the reeling Patriots, to launch this heavily pro-Seattle desert spaceship into orbit....

“ ‘I know you have a million questions about this,’ Pete Carroll said.

“Make it a billion questions. Make it a trillion. Carroll will never be able to explain this to a degree where it’s anything more than this: as horrific a decision as a coach has ever made. It rendered Kearse’s catch Endy Chavez’s: an interesting footnote, nothing else.

“Of course give credit to Butler, who made a title-saving play for the ages. Of course credit Tom Brady, four titles in the books, and Bill Belichick whose own head-scratching decision to keep the clock running at the end will be forgotten. Credit the Pats. They came back. They won the game. They are the champs.

“ ‘That’s a play that’s supposed to work,’ Pete Carroll said, and laud him for his accountability if you want, but never forget: He made the worst call you’ll ever see at the worst time possible. Who else would be accountable for that?’”

Back to Tom Brady, he was 8 for 8 for 56 yards on the game-winning drive, throwing the winning score to Julian Edelman from 3 yards out with 2:02 left.

“Here was Brady, about to suffer a bookend loss to the crushing one he endured in this same stadium seven years ago. On that night, he lost to the Giants and Eli Manning and David Tyree. He lost his 18-0 season to a football that somehow glued itself to the side of Tyree’s helmet, and in some ways, nothing has been the same for the New England quarterback since then.

“And it was happening again. It was Russell Wilson this time, throwing a heave in the direction of receiver Jermaine Kearse that bounced off his hands, and his knees, and his hands again as if he was doing some kind of wild juggling act.

“He caught it lying on his back, just footsteps from the goal line, and it was a much different look on Brady’s face after that play. This look was despair. This look screamed ‘Not again!’ This was a quarterback who saw his 3-0 record in the big game about to go to 0-3, with Seattle running back Marshawn Lynch taking the next snap and carrying it to the 1-yard line.

“The clock was running, time running out on the Patriots, maybe running out on the Brady and Bill Belichick partnership. Then, unthinkably, Wilson dropped back to pass. Then, unthinkably, he tried to force a pass into coverage.

“A cornerback named Malcolm Butler grabbed that ill-advised pass and fell to the ground just outside the goal line. It took a second, maybe two, for it to register on the Patriots sideline, and then Brady let loose.

“ ‘It’s been a long journey,’ he said as he accepted the keys to his new truck as the game’s MVP. ‘It’s incredible to experience this feeling once, and I’ve been fortunate enough to play on four great teams.’”

But as Politi notes, “Maybe in a few weeks or months the Deflategate investigators will step in and slap a big asterisk on that. Maybe some will always wonder about his success and believe the controversies that always seem to follow this franchise tarnish its accomplishments.”

That said is Brady indeed the greatest of all time? I have no problem with that.

“Consider that both Bradshaw and Montana won titles in eras where greats stayed on teams and free agency wasn’t an issue. Brady won his fourth title 13 years after his first, while Bradshaw won his fourth, five years after his first and Montana won his fourth eight years later.

“Not only that, but Brady is doing it in an age of specialized and exotic defenses, nickels, dimes, complicated fronts and looks. Back when Bradshaw and Montana did it, the game wasn’t as complex.”

As for Marshawn Lynch...Martin Rogers / USA TODAY Sports

“(After the game, Lynch) was a man in a hurry, pulling on a sweat suit without bothering to shower, grasping on a giant pair of gold earphones and a reversed baseball cap and clamping them onto his head.

“He left the locker room without a word, to be greeted along a corridor by a small group of friends and family. They commiserated with him, but Lynch chose to mask the pain with laughter. As the group sauntered towards the exit, every question or comment was met with a backwards tilt of his head and a loud cackle.

“He shoved one camera lens out of his face, then another. His crew served as a buffer between him and the small group that followed. A friend whispered in his ear and he paused, shooting a pretend free-throw. He shook hands with a security guard. Another camera approached, and he yelled a single unintelligible word at it, then giggled.

“Maybe Lynch got the last laugh after all. No one expected any member of the losing team to leave so quickly, and his rapid departure caught most of the media flat-footed. At the exact same time, Richard Sherman was still in his full football gear, slumped on a chair in front of his locker, unable or unwilling to move a muscle.

“This was the moment, more so even than Media Day, when everyone wanted to talk to Lynch, not just because he was Marshawn Lynch and because they wanted to see what he would – or probably wouldn’t say – but because they wanted his thoughts on the night’s most critical moment. And he swerved it all once more.

“Maybe that’s what he intended all along, or maybe if the Seahawks had won he would have surprised us all with a priceless and eloquent speech, must to turn the tables and keep everyone guessing.

“But given the way it ended, one thing was for certain. Lynch wanted nothing more to do with this Super Bowl. Beast Mode kept walking and kept laughing, off into the night and whatever else looms.”

Arizona Cardinals linebacker Larry Foote strongly criticized Lynch on Monday. “He always mentions his foundation and what he likes to do for the city of Oakland,” Foote said in an interview with a Pittsburgh radio station. “I’m from the same type of urban environment that he’s from. The biggest message he’s giving these kids, he might not want to admit it, is ‘The hell with authority. I don’t care, fine me. I’m gonna grab my crotch. I’m gonna do it my way.’”

So Foote says the kids will believe they can act the same way Marshawn does.

“In the real world, it doesn’t work that way,” says Foote. “How can you keep a job? I mean, you got these inner-city kids. They don’t listen to teachers. They don’t listen to police officers, principals. And these guys can’t even keep a job because they say ‘F’ authority.” [Terry Blount / ESPN.com]

“History will probably not remember the lucky break that Malcolm Butler got on Sunday in the desert night. The lucky break the Patriots defensive back got was that something terrible happened to him.

“He gave up a 33-yard pass with a minute left in the Super Bowl, one that deflected off him and bounced into the hands of Seattle Seahawks receiver Jermaine Kearse. This is enough to become a goat in any New England establishment for life.

“And then something amazing happened: He became one of the greatest heroes in New England sports history.

“Butler intercepted an end-zone pass with 20 seconds left, giving the Patriots a 28-24 win over the Seahawks in one of the widest finishes in Super Bowl – or sports – history. Few souls in the annals of competition have had their fortunes change so quickly.”

NFL Bits

“The other day I suggested that even a lousy game can yield sensational Super Bowl viewership, which happened last year. But a game that is incredible, surprising, tightly played and has everything but an elf on the sideline deflating balls?

“Well, that sort of game can lead to more people in the United States watching a program than have ever watched any other single event.

“New England’s 28-24 victory attracted a record 114.4 million viewers, more than the average of 112.2 million who tuned in live to Seattle’s 43-8 rout of Denver last year....

“Throughout Sunday night, viewership rose, from 99.5 million at the start to 120.8 million from 9:45 to 10 p.m. Eastern, during New England’s fourth-quarter, game-winning drive. In the last 15 minutes, the figure dipped a smidgen to 120.3 million. That level of viewership is the equivalent of just about everyone in Mexico watching.” [118.5 million tuned in for Katy Perry and the intermission.]

Officially, the Super Bowl scored a Nielsen rating of 49.7 in the 56 overnight markets it measures, which means the average share in those markets was 72% of sets tuned in.

--Career Playoff Passing Touchdowns

Tom Brady 50
Joe Montana 45
Brett Favre 44
Peyton Manning 38
Dan Marino 32
Kurt Warner 31
Terry Bradshaw 30

--In their prior eight games, all victories, Seattle had outscored its opponents by 83-13 in the fourth quarter and overtime – and by 130-26 after halftime, including the NFC title game. [Ben Shpigel / New York Times]

--Clearly the Patriots didn’t follow league rules when it comes to concussion protocol after receiver Julian Edelman took a vicious hit to the head from Kam Chancellor early in the fourth quarter. Edelman got up and tried to extend the play, then had another reception on the drive, but when he went to the sidelines he appeared disoriented. He then returned a punt and later the decisive 3-yard TD reception. But should he have even been on the field?

--With the playing of the Super Bowl, I forgot this meant that Atlanta now has its new coach, Dan Quinn, Seattle’s defensive coordinator, who agreed to a five-year deal with the Falcons on Monday.

[Falcons owner Arthur Blank, by the way, said he was upset by the NFL’s investigation into the team’s use of fake crowd noise at home and that he acknowledges wrongdoing. Blank said the circumstances bothered him. “We have great respect for the shield and the integrity of the game; the integrity of competition. So that bothers me a great deal. We will deal with it.” The Falcons face a fine and probably the loss of a draft pick.]

--Couch Slouch (aka Norman Chad) of the Washington Post follows the Super Bowl minute by minute...among his musings...

2:20: Patriots buses leave team hotel; the tires look a little low.

4:36: Savannah Guthrie interviews President Obama in White House kitchen. Bad call – I didn’t listen to the president, I just watched the guy behind them chopping veggies.

5:08: Toni, a.k.a. She Is The One (And Then Some), just walked in and suggested this be the last football game I ever watch. To get rid of her, I said I’d think about it.

6:34: Patriots go six-and-out on opening series; Brady clearly looks uncomfortable throwing fully inflated football.

7:12: Brady throws 11-yard touchdown pass to Brandon LaFell right after Patriots swap out footballs, undetected.

7:30: Wilson finally gets first completion because of breakdown in Patriots’ surveillance system.

7:48: Rob Gronkowski monster-spikes ball after touchdown, returning it to exact Brady specifications.

9:12: I’m not saying the Patriots are pushing the edges, but I just saw one of their DBs with a Taser.

9:31: Seahawks’ defense left game early in fourth quarter, like their 12th Man fans did at NFC championship game.

10:00: One yard from the end zone and they throw it? Insane. And not ingenious. I guess Marshawn Lynch was winded from media day.

--Some a-hole vandalized Seattle coordinator Darrell Bevell’s Wikipedia page after the game. “He will forever be known for gift wrapping a Super Bowl trophy for the New England Patriots for the most horrendous play call in Super Bowl history,” a user named TruPowah edited into the bio before it was quickly amended, as reported by the New York Daily News’ Jason Molinet. The jerk also changed Bevell’s status to “teamless.”

--NFL Hall of Famer Warren Sapp was arrested after the Super Bowl for allegedly soliciting a prostitute in Phoenix. According to ABC15:

“Police said Sapp met two women in the lobby of the hotel before they went back up to his hotel room. They started discussing money, a physical altercation occurred and the argument spilled into the hallway around 2:30 a.m. Sapp was transported to Phoenix police headquarters where he was questioned and admitted his involvement in the act of prostitution. He denied assaulting the females.”

Sapp was then suspended indefinitely by the NFL Network, where he was an analyst. He becomes an “Idiot of the Year” candidate, plus we may shoehorn him into a few other categories.

Since 2000, “Boston’s professional sports teams (have) nine championships....

“In the same stretch, New York has claimed just four championships, despite harboring twice as many teams: eight to four. The Yankees won titles in 2000 and ’09, and the Giants beat the Patriots in Super Bowls following the 2007 and 2011 seasons. (Sorry, New York, the Devils belong to New Jersey).

“But it’s not just hated Boston that continues to make New York look bad. In the same stretch, Los Angeles (seven championships), San Antonio (four) and Miami (four) have all at least matched the Big Apple....

“The angst is most pronounced for Jets fans – isn’t it always? Gang Green’s fans have gone 46 years without seeing their team reach the Super Bowl...”

Bottom line, it sucks being a Mets, Jets, Knicks and Rangers fan such as moi. When you match those four vs. Boston’s four, which Mr. Puma fails to do, the score is even worse...Boston 9 New York 0!

--Cleveland quarterback Johnny Manziel announced he was entering rehab. An advisor said in a statement: “Johnny knows there are areas in which he needs to improve in order to be a better family member, friend and teammate and he thought the offseason was the right time to take this step.”

The Browns, in their statement, said: “We respect Johnny’s initiative in this decision and will fully support him throughout this process.”

--The NFL announced it has suspended Browns receiver Josh Gordon for at least one year without pay for repeatedly violating the league’s substance-abuse policy. Browns GM Ray Farmer said in part, “It is evident that Josh needs to make some substantial strides to live up to the positive culture we are trying to build this football team upon.

--Finally, before their respective seasons began, yours truly picked the Oregon Ducks to win the national title and the Seahawks to take the Super Bowl. So I finished second in both, which gets me nothing.

College Basketball

AP Poll (Feb. 2)

1. Kentucky 21-0 (all 65 first-place votes)
2. Gonzaga 22-1
3. Virginia 19-1
4. Duke 18-3
5. Wisconsin 19-2
6. Arizona 20-2
7. Villanova 19-2
8. Kansas 18-3
9. Louisville 18-3
10. Notre Dame 20-3
14. Northern Iowa 20-2
15. West Virginia 18-3
23. SMU 18-4
27. Seton Hall...if votes carried out...
29. San Diego State...Mountain West getting zero respect, and probably deservedly so.

Then on Monday, 3 Virginia defeated 12 North Carolina in Chapel Hill, 75-64, a good bounce back win for the Cavaliers. 8 Kansas beat 11 Iowa State 89-73.

Tuesday, Kentucky defeated Georgia 69-58, but we all know by now the Wildcats can be beat. It’s going to be about the play of the Harrison twins. While Andrew had 23 points Tuesday to save the day, Aaron is hitting just .371 percent of his shots from the field this season and Andrew is at .360. That’s hideous! One bad game by these two against the wrong opponent in the tourney and it’s bye-bye Calipari and Co.

5 Wisconsin had a nice win over a solid Indiana squad, 92-78, while 21 Oklahoma defeated 15 West Virginia, 71-52.

Wake Forest won its second straight close ACC contest, blowing a 24-point lead at home against North Carolina State but surviving, 88-84, to move to 3-7 in conference play. Six wins, baby...six wins.

Here I played up Seton Hall last time and then they went out on Tuesday and laid an egg at DePaul, 75-62, to fall to 5-5 in Big East play. At the same time, St. John’s fate was sealed as they lost to 22 Butler, 85-62, to fall to 3-6 in conference.

--John Feinstein / Washington Post...on the one-and-done rule.

“The rule will go away when everyone in power decides it needs to go away and is willing to compromise to do so. The NBA...keeps insisting this is about the players’ association refusing to cooperate.

“ ‘They see it as a negotiating chip,’ (David) Stern said, shortly before he retired. ‘We aren’t willing to give up what they want in return for making the change.’

“That means the NBA doesn’t consider it important enough that it’s willing to give the players something in return. How about a higher salary cap? Forbes magazine recently valued 11 NBA franchises at more than $1 billion.”

So Feinstein suggests the NBA and the players compromise and in return for the players getting more money, they agree “to use the baseball model going forward when it comes to draft eligibility....

“The baseball rule: Any player graduating from high school is eligible for the draft. Once he finds out where he’s drafted and what kind of money he can make to turn pro, he then decides whether to turn pro or go to college. None of this is blind guessing. One of the reasons so many underclassmen put their names into the basketball draft each year is because they have agents telling them, ‘Don’t listen to your coach, don’t listen to any committee, I know general managers and you’ll go in the lottery. Or in the first round.’

“Are they often lying? Of course they are. They can’t make any money off players who are still in college.

“Remember, everyone selected in the first round of the NBA draft is guaranteed a contract. Second round and free agency? Nothing. So, if a player is drafted in the first round and the money’s guaranteed, he will probably want to sign. If not, he might want to go to college.

“In baseball, if you go that route, you can’t go back in the draft for three years. That means you have to make some effort to go to class and to make academic progress. It means if you leave school after three years there’s a reasonable chance you might come back and graduate....And it takes the predatory agents out of the process for two years.

“Two of the best big men in the country this winter are Wisconsin’s Frank Kaminski and Syracuse’s Rakeem Christmas. ‘You want to know why they’re so good?’ former Maryland coach Gary Williams asked rhetorically. ‘Because they’re seniors. They weren’t stars as freshmen and they stayed in school and learned how to play. They’re men.

“ ‘But if you’re a freshman and you have talent you have to turn pro. Everyone tells you that you have to turn pro and if you don’t, people look at you like you’re some kind of a loser’....

“So let’s change it. If someone is a true star with no interest in going to college, let him turn pro out of high school. Kevin Garnett, Kobe Bryant, LeBron James and others did it with great success. Others were utter failures, but they almost certainly would also have failed with one year of college under their belt.”

--The Hawks’ winning streak of 19 was snapped by the Pelicans in New Orleans on Monday, 115-100, as Anthony Davis had 29. New Orleans is 26-22, the Hawks dropped to 40-9.

--Since I mentioned the Nets’ Jarrett Jack the other day for his heroic effort in an overtime loss to the Raptors, I can’t help but note he hit the winning jumper with 1.3 seconds left to give Brooklyn (19-28) a stirring come-from-behind victory over the Clippers (33-16) 102-100, Monday.

--Philadelphia defeated Denver on Tuesday, 105-98, to move to 11-39, while the Knicks are now 10-39 after losing to the Celtics, 108-97.

World Alpine Championships

The big event of the season is taking place at Beaver Creek, Colo., and it was two years ago during the championships in Schladming, Austria that Lindsey Vonn crashed and tore her ACL in the super-G; reinjuring her knee when she attempted to return in December 2013.

Sincere her latest comeback started this past December, though, Vonn has won five races and had a second in 10 events, including her record 63rd last month.

Well the first event was on Tuesday, the women’s super-G, and Anna Fenninger of Austria won, Tina Maze of Slovenia took silver and Lindsey Vonn got the bronze. Vonn unfortunately fell behind early in her run and clearly was impacted by a big gust of wind in the top quarter but afterwards ran great. No shame here. [Tiger was in attendance.]

Wednesday marks the return of 37-year-old Bode Miller in the same event. Miller is recovering from an operation he had in November to repair a herniated disk sustained in a crash last March.

Golf Balls

--Per my last chat, Patrick Reed addressed the accusations in Shane Ryan’s upcoming book on the PGA Tour, with a just-released excerpt focusing on Reed’s past alleged cheating and bad behavior. Through his management team at IMG, Reed said:

“The accusations that were made against me are serious and were intended to damage my reputation and character. They will not be taken lightly. My team and my representatives are looking into all aspects of this matter, and we look forward to setting the record straight.

“For now, I’m staying focused on my life in the present and being the best husband, father and golfer I can be.”

--With everything else going on Sunday, I forgot to mention that Phil Mickelson failed to make the cut at the Phoenix Open, joining Tiger. Also, Robert Allenby, fresh (mangled) off his episode in Hawaii, also didn’t make the cut in his first appearance since lord knows what happened to him.

But this week we now have what is normally an entertaining event, Torrey Pines, with Tiger and Phil the Thrill both entered. I’ll say Tiger makes the cut but finishes T-40.

[Tiger is just 50-1 to win the tournament, according to the Westgate Las Vegas SuperBook. Jordan Spieth is tops at 10-1, followed by Jason Day at 12-1. Phil Mickelson is 30-1, along with Dustin Johnson, who is making his Tour debut after a six-month suspension for an undisclosed substance abuse violation, apparently his third strike.]

--Charlie Sifford passed away, just months after being awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom (Bar Chats 11/27/14, 12/1/14). He was 92.

Sifford broke golf’s color barrier, becoming the first black member of the PGA Tour in 1961. He won the 1967 Greater Hartford Open and the Los Angeles Open in 1969.

In 2004, Sifford became the first African-American inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame.

PGA of America president Derek Sprague said: “His love of golf, despite many barriers in his path, strengthened him as he became a beacon for diversity in our game. By his courage, Dr. Sifford inspired others to follow their dreams. Golf was fortunate to have had this exceptional American in our midst.”

Jack Nicklaus once said, “I think what Charlie Sifford has brought to his game has been monumental.”

The folks at The Masters tournament, though, did not invite their first black until Lee Elder in 1975, for which Sifford was forever bitter, though his pain was eased when Tiger Woods won his first green jacket in 1997.

Tiger said: “It’s not an exaggeration to say that without Charlie, and the other pioneers who fought to play, I may not be playing golf. My pop likely wouldn’t have picked up the sport, and maybe I wouldn’t have either.”

In his autobiography, “Just Let Me Play,” Sifford recalls meeting Jackie Robinson around the time he was trying to break baseball’s color barrier.

“He asked me if I was a quitter,” Sifford wrote. “I told him no. He said, ‘If you’re not a quitter, you’re probably going to experience some things that will make you want to quit.” [Associated Press]

--80 PGA Tour caddies have filed a class-action suit against the Tour for being forced to wear bibs adorned with sponsors logos; the caddies contending the Tour makes $50 million annually from the bibs and they receive nothing.

As the caddies are independent contractors, they aren’t part of any Tour health or pension plans and that is what they are really seeking.

Ball Bits

--In an interview with new commissioner Rob Manfred, the Los Angeles Times’ Bill Shaikin notes when it comes to MLB’s television audience:

“The World Series has lost more than half its national audience over the last three decades, and Game 5 of last year’s World Series was soundly thumped by a regular-season NFL game.

“MLB’s television audience is also getting old. Half of its viewers are 55 or older, up from 41% a decade ago, according to Nielsen research. That demographic accounts for 37% of NFL viewers, 29% of NHL viewers and 25% of NBA viewers.”

So it’s about engaging young people and promoting stars...not just big-market ones like Clayton Kershaw and Mike Trout, but the likes of Andrew McCutchen as well.

And baseball does have a terrific technology platform going for it.

I am super optimistic about the sport’s future, partly because, as I’ve noted for a few years now, some great high school athletes are going to turn away from football to focus on baseball. [As well as basketball.] That just seems a given.

--Josh Hamilton is hurt again. Unreal. The Angels announced he will undergo surgery to repair the AC joint in his right shoulder, which will keep him out a minimum of six to eight weeks. 

Hamilton is entering the third year of a five-year, $125 million contract.

Since coming to the Angels after a successful run at Texas, Hamilton has been a bust.

--Russell Wilson is joining the Rangers again for spring training. He spent two years in the Colorado Rockies farm system and hit. 229 with 15 stolen bases in 61 games. If it’s like last year, Wilson will just participate in some drills and attend an exhibition game or two.

--In a story by the Philadelphia Daily News’ Stan Hochman, Hall of Fame pitcher Jim Bunning says he was never more frustrated than at the recent committee meeting for the Golden Era players and the vote to see if any veterans would be inducted, such as former Phillie teammate Dick Allen, who needed 12 of 16 votes and got 11.

Bunning “seethed” the other day, “I felt useless. It was the most disappointing 3 days I’ve ever spent in my life!”

As Hochman notes, including the weekend in September 1964, when the Phillies blew the pennant? Blowing a 6 ½-game lead with 12 to play wasn’t Allen’s fault. He hit .429 during that stretch.

So Bunning did all he could to promote Allen’s candidacy but it wasn’t enough. But there is this tidbit.

“Someone said he hit 20 home runs that traveled more than 500 feet,” Bunning said. “No one, no one in baseball had ever hit that many homers that went 500 feet.”

--Weeks after a Dec. 28 accident in Aspen, Colorado, Lance Armstrong was cited by Aspen police with failing to report an accident in which he hit two parked cars after a night of partying. Armstrong agreed to let his girlfriend take the blame so he could avoid national publicity, police reports show. That, my friends, is a Class A Dirtball.

“The news Tuesday that Lance Armstrong tried to pin the blame on his girlfriend for hitting two cars after a night of partying should come as a surprise to no one. He built a career and a lucrative cult personality out of lies, seeing the truth as something only suckers or the weak would champion.

“As his fame and fortune grew, so did the stakes. The few who dared question or contradict his version of reality soon felt his wrath, and he was so determined to protect himself and the stories he’d spun that he didn’t care who he destroyed to do it.

“Even when he finally did come clean about using performance-enhancing drugs, the lies having finally caught up to him, it was more about self-preservation than true remorse. His legacy was in shambles and his seven Tour de France titles had been stripped, and he was now a pariah when only a few years earlier he’d been hailed as a hero.

“The only thing that could still be saved was the millions his lies had bought. So he apologized and tried to sound sincere while doing so.

“But lie to yourself and the world for that long, and it becomes second nature.”

--ESPN’s Dan Rafael is reporting the Floyd Mayweather Jr. – Manny Pacquiao bout is facing a make-or-break next few days, after six years of on and off again talks. Many of us have long grown weary of this stupid dance.

But, hopefully, the issues can be resolved, if not for the slated May 2 date but sometime in June. Promoter Bob Arum, who represents Pacquiao, told ESPN.com on Monday, “There are issues that should be solved in 10 minutes, but it’s a slow dance. We send one draft to their side and their lawyer sends back a draft with something else that’s an issue. And there doesn’t seem to be any urgency about it on their side. It’s terrible.” 

Time Warner/HBO is Pacquiao’s exclusive network, while Mayweather is under contract to CBS/Showtime and the two have been finalizing a joint pay-per-view agreement. Arum has been negotiating directly through CBS CEO Leslie Moonves. But Arum said it’s not certain that Mayweather’s people will listen to Moonves.

--Edward J. Saylor died. He was 94.

Saylor was one of the four remaining Doolittle’s Raiders who bombed Japanese cities in a bold response to the attack on Pearl Harbor four months earlier.

In 2013, speaking at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida after officials there named a hangar after him, Saylor said: “My reaction when I found out we were bombing Japan from an aircraft carrier was that it was too far to swim back home so we might as well go ahead with it. We just did what we had to do,” he told the New York Times. “It was a job.”

Well, as Steve Chawkins of the Los Angeles Times wrote:

“In fact, it was more than that. Many historians see the 1942 U.S. attack as a crucially dispiriting event for a Japanese public steeped in the myth of the empire’s invulnerability. It also was crucial for Americans, who were still reeling from the devastation of Pearl Harbor and other losses in the Pacific at the beginning of World War II.

“ ‘It was a psychological raid,’ historian and retired colonel C.V. Glines told The Times in 2001. ‘FDR wanted some real effort to show the Japanese that we could and would fight back.’”

As for Saylor’s plane, his bomber being one of 16 in the mission, it ran out of fuel on its way back after bombing an aircraft factory and other targets in Kobe, Japan, and ditched in the East China Sea.

“Saylor didn’t know how to swim but struggled to a nearby Chinese island on a rapidly deflating life raft. Villagers kept him and his crew mates a step ahead of Japanese patrols, hiding them in a cave, a Buddhist temple and under fetid mats in the hold of a fishing boat. After weeks of perilous travel, they made it to safety.”

It was in 2013 that Saylor and two other Raiders met to toast their departed comrades, sipping a special cognac from silver goblets inscribed with their names. A fourth couldn’t make it due to poor health.

Now there are three. They started with 80.

Historian Glines once said to Doolittle, “I wonder who the last two will be.”

Doolittle responded, “I wonder who the other guy will be.”

--A Danish study published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology notes that running less can be more when it comes to a longer life. Runners who didn’t exceed 2.5 hours a week are 78% less likely to die than sedentary people – but “strenuous joggers” who run for four-plus hours per week are just as much at risk as couch potatoes.

“If your goal is to decrease risk of death and improve life expectancy, jogging a few times a week at a moderate pace is a good strategy,” said lead author, Dr. Peter Schnohr. “Anything more is not just unnecessary, it may be harmful.”

Yippee! I’m a moderate, generally four times a week jogger.

Of course for marathoners, it’s not really about long-term health. It’s more personal.

--New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio did attend Groundhog Day ceremonies in Staten Island, but authorities changed the format and no one handled Staten Island Chuck; the mayor having dropped and killed him at last year’s event.

Chuck, by the way, said there would be an early spring, but Punxsutawney Phil on Gobbler’s Knob in Pennsylvania said six more weeks of winter. I’m going with Phil.

--It would seem I won’t have to worry about Suge Knight showing up at my Dunkin’ Donuts any time soon. Knight was formally charged with murder following his arrest last week in a fatal hit-and-run in Compton. The incident followed an “altercation,” the L.A. County DA’s office announced Monday. Knight was driving his truck and allegedly ran over two men, killing one. Suge then left the scene.

The reason why none of you should be having nightmares that he’ll appear at your home is because his $2 million bail was revoked, police arguing he was a flight risk.

The victim was a member of the crew working on a movie set. It also turns out Knight was out on bail in a robbery case. That’s the biggest reason why the DA is showing no mercy. Knight’s attorney said his client was being attacked while in his car and he didn’t realize he ran over anyone as he tried to get away, fearing for his life.

This case qualifies as a third strike case for the Sugester and he faces the possibility of life in prison. 

But this just in...Suge has been taken to hospital, complaining of chest pains. Those poor hospital workers.

Top 3 songs for the week 2/6/65: #1 “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’” (The Righteous Brothers...oh, back in the day, voice properly lubed, I could do a good job with this one...) #2 “Downtown” (Petula Clark...the one and only...terrific tune...) #3 “The Name Game” (Shirley Ellis...this hasn’t aged well...)...and...#4 “This Diamond Ring” (Gary Lewis and The Playboys...underrated) #5 “Hold What You’ve Got” (Joe Tex) #6 “Love Potion Number Nine” (The Searchers) #7 “All Day And All Of The Night” (The Kinks...was such a cool sound...) #8 “My Girl” (The Temptations...as opposed to #3, this one is timeless...) #9 “How Sweet It Is To Be Loved By You” (Marvin Gaye...ditto ...) #10 “Shake” (Sam Cooke...now that is a top ten, boys and girls!)

Baseball Quiz Answer: Top ten in hits....

1. Pete Rose 4256
2. Ty Cobb 4189
3. Hank Aaron 3771
4. Stan Musial 3630
5. Tris Speaker 3514
6. Derek Jeter 3465
7. Cap Anson 3435*
8. Honus Wagner 3420
9. Carl Yastrzemski 3419
10. Paul Molitor 3319

11. Eddie Collins 3315...incredibly underrated
12. Willie Mays 3283

*I’ve always had a problem with Anson’s numbers. He played from 1871-1897 and I just can’t believe the numbers from those early years, like the first 15+ of his career, are totally accurate.

Leading actives....

Alex Rodriguez 2939...boooo....boooo....
Ichiro 2844

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