The Defensive Druid

It's weird trying to follow the NFL without watching games. On one hand, it's surprisingly easy to play fantasy football. The 5 hour time zone difference gives me a slight edge on Mondays that makes up for missing guys who have breakout days. All the rest is just down to analyzing stats.

On the other hand, I'm completely confused about the New England Patriots. I thought that they were done? That Belichek wasn't the genius who could win with any personnel that we thought he was? Didn't they lose, like, 3 of their first 4? That's kind of what it felt like to me. And now I come to find out that they're 5-1. It's bizarre.

Don't get me wrong, I always root against the Pats. But Bill Belichek, who I dubbed the Defensive Druid back when he always wore those hooded sweatshirts with the hood up, is the greatest coach of our generation. It's unbelievable what he does for New England, year after year, in this age of free agency. They will never suck while he is coaching them.

Shawn Merriman

Talk about an immediate test to our respective theories! Shawn Merriman (who is filthy good in Madden '07) tested positive, apparently, for anabolic steroids -- or whatever "not one of those supplemental deals" means -- at some point last week. He's been suspended for four games.

I think Merriman is exactly the kind of high profile player that will put NFL fans to the test on this steroids issue. Merriman is not the equivalent of an entire Super Bowl roster testing positive, but it's the next best thing for theory testing. He's been ridiculously good and hyped. A baseball parallel would be, uh, Jose Reyes or something. Right? Maybe Travis Hafner? Young, excellent, recognized. Anyway.

I hypothesized in my post that no NFL players would be caught with anabolic steroids. Whoops. Wrong on that count, govna!

I'll still be surprised by any significant backlash against Merriman. Even though he has been caught red-handed, I place the odds of somebody throwing a syringe, for instance, at Merriman at approximately 1%. People won't care.

Of the four articles currently on ESPN.com about this issue, only one deals directly with Merriman. One is a "Your Take" link, one is a "What will the Chargers do?" and one is a "Chargers lost their game today." Are you serious? If Hafner tests positive, ESPN.com's entire front page is dominated by What Hafner Did, When He Did It, and Next Gallows Vacancy Three Weeks From Tuesday.

In the interests of balance, I should note that Eric Allen (who?) did write this on ESPN.com: "This is a kid who presumably wanted to one day be mentioned in the same breath as luminaries like Mike Singletary, Dick Butkus, Ray Lewis and Lawrence Taylor. Now he stands a much better chance of being mentioned in the same breath as Brian Bosworth and Tony Mandarich."

Unlikely, I say, but I guess we'll see.

Shevy!

Shevy scored this weekend for the first time in the Premiership as Chelsea defeated Charlton, 2-1. Off the schnide, then. I love it. On to bigger and better!

I didn't see the game, but I have a few notes from the Soccernet story:

1. Both Shevy and Ballack scored, and they both were booked for excessive celebrations, which involved the fans. I'm totally OK with those penalties, even if Jose is pissed that 'only Chelsea gets penalized' for excessive celebration. Ach. Jose! Give it up.

2. This note on Cech's recovery just about blew my mind:

"I spoke to (Cech) yesterday," Mourinho said. "I was pleased because the left side of the brain has a direct relationship with speech and he was speaking well. I was speaking English and then changed to French on purpose and he changed with me at the same time."

Europe is an alternative universe. -- Mourinho, of course, is from Portugal and Cech is from the Czech Republic. English? French? Whack.

3. I was impressed in the Reading game by Robben's dedication to the system. Looks like that's paying off. He was involved in both goals during the Charlton game. Huge. In related news, Joe Cole managed to get a yellow card during his 16 minutes on the pitch. Eek.

4. I said Chelsea could have beaten Reading 4-0, but Arsenal did. Congrats, jerk faces.

NFL Steroids

I'm quite sure, at this point, that I could make a name for myself as a writer if I took the time to dig up as much as I could about steroid abuse in the NFL. The problem is A)The nearest NFL team is on the other side of an ocean to me and B)I'm not really up to the task, both in my shortcomings as a reporter and my general lack of desire to write about steroids. Fyall...you're welcome to take this idea and run with it. Just put me in the acknowledgements of your best-seller.

For now, I'll continue to occaisionally bring up my theory that the lack of steroid news from the NFL relative to the MLB is not based on the excellence of the NFL testing and prevention policies, but rather from success on behalf of the players and others to cover up steroid use. My prediction: by the time I move back to the US in a few years, steroids will have been revealed as a much larger problem in the NFL then we now believe.

Two new steroid news reports Wednesday:

First, Atlanta Falcon Matt Lehr was busted for violating the steroids and related substances abuse policy. Lehr claims the illegal substance was in an a nutritional substance. Yeah right.

Second, Shaun Rogers of the Detroit Lions was also suspended for four games. He says he was taking an appetite suppressant which contained a banned substance because he was getting late night food cravings because of a sleeping disorder. It's complicated.

-----P.S.-----

Just saw Fyall's comments yesterday regarding this incomplete post. I think he's hit on something in his contrast of the NFL to baseball. I still think you could make quite a splash with a 300 page expose on steroids in the NFL.

But other than that, we're on the same page; there is less buzz around steroid coverage for the NFL than for MLB. Just compare how much you heard about the Panthers with how much you heard about Barry Bonds.

Would the Panthers story have been a bigger deal if they had won the Super Bowl? I think so. What if it came out that the entire Steeler's roster, including Bill Cowher's jaw, was on steroids last year? NOW how do you feel, Seattle? I think it'd be a bigger uproar over steroids than over the refereeing.

Something approaching that theoretical is coming. That's all I'm saying.

World Series Preview

Liz is watching America's Next Top Model, so I have an hour to kill!

Let's start this off with the result of the World Series: Tigers in 6 games.

I was going to say Tigers in 5, but I think the fact that St. Louis was in the Series two years ago will give them an extra game. Other than that experience, they don't have much going for them.

I did, by the way, catch game 7 of the NLCS. Had to pay $14.99 to watch it on mlb.com. They make you buy the entire post-season, but unless the series goes deep, I probably won't stay up until 5am again to watch a game. So was it worth it? Absolutely. Endy's catch was worth $15 alone. That was the first Mets game I'd watched in a couple months. Pretty depressing. The one thing that made me wish I'd caught more of the series was Willie Randolph's managing. He came off in game 7 as something of a gunslinger. I loved that he predicted he'd be 2nd-guessed going into the series. Giving Oliver Perez the start over Trachsel...unbelievable. I came off as a bigger Willie fan, but I wished I'd seen the whole series so I could make a better judgment. Am I wrong about this?

I thought he also handled Pujols masterfully. And that brings me to the most glaring weakness for the Cardinals. After Pujols, I can't remember a more underwhelming lineup in the recent postseason. When I think great lineups, I don't think Yankees, actually. I think back to the back-to-back Blue Jays World Champion lineups. Those were unbelievable. Look at the boxscore for 1993's Game 6. Now I know the recent Yankees lineups have had a bit more star power, but the balance of that Blue Jays lineup is incredible. Remember how good Paul Molitor was? Olerud hit .363 that season with 24 HRs. Alomar hitting 6th?!!!? Tony Fernandez would probably hit 2nd for this St. Louis team. And Sprague and Borders both contributed in the playoffs.

Here's the thing. Great lineups like that are HORRIFYING to opposing fans all the way through. You know it's a good lineup when, after your team's inning is over, they show the "Due Up" graphic and you get nervous. And that happens every inning. And the more games you watch, the more you fear every player from top to bottom.

Back to the Cardinals, who didn't remotely do that to me the other night. You've got Pujols, who is the best hitter of my lifetime. He'll find a way to do some damage, but his protection is a disaster. Juan Encarnacion is nice, but not scary at all. Rolen is a shell of what he used to be. Edmonds is way past his prime. Meanwhile at the top of the lineup, Eckstein doesn't give you the base stealing threat you'd like at the top. And Preston Wilson strikes out constantly.

As for pitching, the edge clearly goes to the Tigers. They've got great depth in their starters. Carpenter might be the best pitcher in the series, but probably not. Suppan will not repeat what he did on Thursday.

That's all I got. I'm pulling for the NL, and the Cardinals, who remain consistently likeable despite Thursday night. Except for Yadier Molina.

NFL Steroids - The Prequel

As I was posting my Bobby Knight note just now, I noticed that Paul is in the middle of writing a post on steroids and the NFL. I'm not sure if this is a violation of blogger ethics, or simply clever Sports Sauna self-promotion, but let me pull a selection from Paul's upcoming post.

"My prediction: by the time I move back to the US in a few years, steroids will have been revealed as a much larger problem in the NFL then we now believe," Paul writes.

(You'll have to come back for the rest).

I think Paul is right, but only because he compared the NFL's future 'drug problem' to its current one. If Paul had suggested that the NFL's problem would be comparable to MLB's, I would have protested loudly. Let's pretend like he did. It'll be fun.

First, anybody listening to late-night sports radio here in the U.S. is aware that NFL's steroids problem is already an issue of some contention. Paul's right on that front already. People are complaining. The Carolina Panthers revelation earlier this summer has raised hackles in some circles, and a certain school of thought holds that the Panthers revelation will be the first in a string of many. I don't subscribe to that. While I'm sure that time will bring an increasing awareness of the depth of the problem, there is nothing to suggest that the problem will become more controversial.

I don't think NFL fans care. The league's attention span is ridiculously short. Where baseball and cycling fans bring and expect a sense of history, football fans do not. Every season is a toss-up, and the league is celebrated for that. Every weekend is a frenzy, and one season's Super Bowl loser is next season's Drafting In The Top 10. How could a team nearly win the Super Bowl, be exposed as cheaters less than three years later, and nobody but late-night truck drivers even notice?

The problem is compounded by the probable lack of anabolic steroids. If NFL players are taking HGH or any number of non-detectable drug, I think they'll get away completely free. Because nobody pays attention very long in the league, there will be no push to develop more strict testing. The NFL will let MLB, with a fan base that cares obsessively, implement the tests first and get the majority of the bad press. Then the NFL will coast in, slap a few hands, and continue on its merry way.

More awareness of the problem, Paul? OK. Sure. More concern? No way.

Bobby Knight, Texas Tech and the Year 2012

Who among us can read the headline "Extension could keep Knight at Tech through 2012" and not be hit with an overwhelming sense of disaster? I'm glad I don't root for that team.

How can you give long-term security to guys like Bobby Knight? Bobby Huggins, too. Why would an athletic director lock them up? If you're Texas Tech, are you worried that some other school is going to steal Bobby K. away? Is that something that crosses your mind?

It shouldn't. In my mind, that's basically inconceivable. We're not talking Charlie Weis here -- good guy, solid results. We're not even talking Dennis Erickson-circa University of Miami -- questionable character, excellent results. At this point with both Knight and Huggins we're talking exceedingly spotty character issues and fairly disappointing records. Right? I mean, sure, Texas Tech is better now than it has been historically, but has it been great? By any stretch of the imagination? Moreover, any list of the most disappointing teams of the last 10 years would probably feature, among its top three or four names, the University of Cincinnati. Right? How does Huggins score a five year contract? At $800,000 a year?

Shouldn't there be some sort of financial penalty for being a walking train-wreck and an impending liability? Is there another coaching profession that so quickly and thoroughly embraces its own rejects? I know Bobby has been reasonably well behaved for three years, but don't we all feel as though these years are a temporary abberation? He cannot keep this up. No chance.

One of the interesting features in 2007 Madden is the "injury prone" tag that the computer slaps on some guys. If a dude is labeled "injury prone" the computer will sign him to one-year contracts at a maximum.

NCAA presidents need to give some consideration to "meltdown prone" coaches, and shy away. Bobby Knight is trouble. Ditto Huggins. You've been warned, TTU.

U isn't great*

I wasn't going to say anything about the Miami-FIU brawl. I mean, why bother? Even though I hate Miami more than any other team, there was little to be gained by commenting on them getting into a fight. They're Miami. Everyone knows they're a bunch of immoral, psychotic thugs. No need to point it out.

But this story got my attention today. Apparently, even the analyst for Miami's cable station is an immoral, psychotic thug! Well, he is a former Miami player, but I thought that some Miami players lost that once they left (not all, obviously). Here's what Lamar Thomas said on TV when the fight broke out:

"Now, that's what I'm talking about," Thomas said as the brawl raged out of control. "You come into our house, you should get your behind kicked. You don't come into the OB playing that stuff. You're across the ocean over there. You're across the city. You can't come over to our place talking noise like that. You'll get your butt beat. I was about to go down the elevator to get in that thing."

As the fight slowed, Thomas' comments continued. "I say, why don't they just meet outside in the tunnel after the ball game and get it on some more? You don't come into the OB, baby," Thomas said. "We've had a down couple years but you don't come in here talking smack. Not in our house."

I think it'd be funny if, instead of just firing him or whatever, they let Larry Coker dish out the punishment. I think the press conference would go something like this:

"What Lamar did was wrong, and he knows that and I know that and the University of Miami knows that. But Lamar is a good guy and he's learned from his mistake and we're going to move on. He'll perform 10 hours of community service, after the season in over. I'll supervise it. It will be in my backyard.

"I was very concerned about that he might say something like this and Lamar and I addressed it a lot of times throughout the week. As the game started to get away from FIU, I was very, very concerned that a brawl might break out and Lamar might encourage it."

"I do have a grip on this program. Don't ever doubt that. Don't ever doubt that."

Larry Coker, ladies and gentlemen. Don't mess with him.


*See here for the explanation of why Miami uses a "U" as their logo, as well as some insight into the mental state of Miami officials.

New Life for the Mets

I gotta say, I thought the Mets were dead going into last night. And that was before I knew the (potentially) insane Oliver Perez was taking the mound to set a new record for worst regular season ERA by a post-season starter in history. That's the thing about baseball; while pitching is the key to winning in the postseason, it's never the team with the best pitchers on paper that gets the best pitching.

But going into last night, it seemed like a typical "team wins game 1 then goes ice cold the rest of the way" situation. They're facing, after all, a very experienced team in St. Louis. The Cardinals seemed likely to be able to finish them off before they could say, "Ya gotta believe!"

But now it's a 3-game series, with two in New York. And darn it all if I'm not going to have to start looking for a TV at 1am on Wednesday. Minaya's Latino Mets are still in this thing.

As for Ollie, no one remembers more than me how good he was back in 2004; I had him on my fantasy team that year. I actually packaged him with Alfonso Soriano for Albert Pujols at the end of the year, in that keeper league. Since the Mets grabbed him, I've been watching for something, anything that could get his head back in the right place. And maybe a 5 inning, 1 walk, virtually series-saving performance could do it. Probably not, but maybe. Throwing him yesterday could be worth a ton down the road.

OK, I'll stop thinking about the future until the end of the season. The Mets are 6 wins from a title. What's our biggest obstacle? The struggles of the Braves in the postseason are well documented. This summer I heard Keith Olbermann on the Dan Patrick radio show blasting Bobby Cox for insisting on pitching Maddux, Glavine, and Smoltz on 3-days rest every fall. He said their poor post-season stats, especially Maddux and Glavine, came from those starts on 3-days rest. Well, Glavine SHOULD have gotten 4-days rest. But because his start was rained out and postponed, he's going on 3-days rest tonight. Then we face Carpenter on 4 days rest Wednesday.

My hope? That Glavine gets the game to the bullpen. The Wagner blown save doesn't scare me, by the way. He'll bounce back. Willie's done a good job of managing the bullpen, and Wagner and Heilman haven't pitched these past two games.

Terry Does it All

John Terry got some minutes in goal for Chelsea yesterday after two of their keepers had to be taken off. I've always felt bad for poor old Carlo Cudicini, a spectacular goalie, who's been stuck behind Peter Cech. Now Chelsea might be without both of them for their match with Barcelona on Wednesday. A quick glance at the Chelsea roster tells us that Henrique Hilario, a 30-year-old from Portugal, is the 3rd string goalie. Apparently he's notable enough to have his own Wikipedia article, but aside from mentioning that he played for Jose Morinho at Porto, it doesn't tell us too much. Oh! He is "known simply as Hilario." I think my Wikipedia article would be similar:


Paul Andrew Arras, known simply as "Arras," (born September 8, 1981 in Syracuse, New York, USA) is an American student who plays as a writer for The Sports Sauna and This Island Life.

He joined blogger on February 16, 2005 for Eric Allen's blog, Random Thoughts.

First College Basketball Preview!!!!

I'm so excited, I'm going to note every line that gets me excited:

• Andy Katz: The impact of freshman Paul Harris is expected to be so important, though, that Syracuse could be Final Four-good.
• Harris is listed as one of the top 6 "Newcomers"
  
• Jay Bilas: By March, Paul Harris will have established himself as the best freshman in the Big East and will have assumed the moniker of "go-to guy" for the Orange.

And the Glory Years of Syracuse University basketball roll on!!!

MLB Postseason

It's a very weird feeling to be following the Mets from over here. It's kinda like the baseball postseason is taking place in a dream world. Are the Mets really up by a game in the LCS? Are they really the favorites of the final four teams? Just in case its really happening, I've been wearing my new David Wright shirt all over town. Unfortunately, no one has commented on it, except Liz, who decided David Wright was hot when she saw him in the home run derby.

And the Detroit Tigers are 2 wins away from the World Series? There's really only a couple other franchises that I have in the past few years considered as hopeless as the Tigers. And now, out of all the strong teams in the American League, it's the A's or the Tigers in the World Series? I really like the chances of the winner of the NLCS.

Still haven't seen a playoff game this year. Last night's Mets game started at 1:30am. It was actually broadcast on Five, but I don't have a TV in my room. I'm considering my options if the series goes deep and/or if the Mets make the world series.

Englanders are Jumping off Bridges as I Type

Last night's score from Zagreb...Croatia 2-0 England. The second goal was pretty hilarious. Gary Neville gave a smooth pass right back to goalie Paul Robinson. The ball took a funky bounce just as Robinson was going to hit it and he whiffed. The ball went straight to the back of the net. It's the kind of goal that happens every week on the field I play on in the summers. No one to blame and didn't factor into the result.

The bigger story after the match was the apparent failure of new coach Steve McClaren's 3-5-2 formation. All the papers are screaming about McClaren's job being in jeopardy just a few months after he got it. It all seems a little premature to me. In any sport, it takes some time for players to settle into a new coach and a new system. If you're the FA, you invested a lot of time and effort into searching for this coach, so you've got to stick with your decision for a while, and I'm quite sure they will.

I think in this situation England will have to go down with McClaren's ship. At least, they should stick with him until next spring and see how they're doing. Obviously, if they don't qualify for the Euro Cup, that is an unacceptable failure and McClaren is done. (At this point, American coaches are on that same level: qualify for the World Cup or you're gone. That's how the sport works.) But if they stumble into qualifying, England might benefit from a new man in charge. Bottom line, it'd be insanely counter-productive to fire him in 2006. And they should probably stick with him through the Championship.


As for the 3-5-2 formation, I suppose that should be on a shorter leash. But it's not as though England looked any better in the old 4-4-2. They were equally inept last night on offense. Actually, I kept thinking about the last time Fyall and I did a franchise in FIFA on PlayStation. We had Ashley Cole on our team, and I'd often play 5 midfielders. My mindset was the outer-most midfielders were simply super-aggressive defenders. That's what Cole and Neville were last night. FIFA is such a great game, that Cole was making the exact same runs for England that he did for our Fulham. In the game though, those two outside midfielders would get dead tired very fast and lose effectiveness. I'm not quite sure how realistic that is, but McClaren didn't use his substitutions on either of those boys (even though Ashley Cole was limping on a bad ankle for the last 10 minutes). Something to watch...whether the guys on those wing positions lose their effectiveness as they go.

I think it's a great formation for Ashley Cole, because it encourages his strengths. I'm not sure how well it suits the rest of the gang though. Lampard was playing more forward than the rest of the midfield, as he should, but his slump continues. Rooney was in front of Crouch, mostly, but his slump continues. Scott Parker, to my dismay, was virtually invisible.

Perhaps it's not the formation but simply a matter of the offensive weapons being either in a slump or injured. Joe Cole will rejoin the starting lineup when he's healthy, and I'm sure Andrew Johnson would have seen minutes in this game or the Macedonia match if he had been fit. England's offense has no edge right now. The coach needs to fix that. We'll see if England gives him the time he needs to do it.

European Championship Qualifying: England v. Macedonia

I caught the England-Macedonia game on Sunday. If you didn't hear, it ended in a 0-0 draw. It was played at Old Trafford. Debacle. Absolutely no visible difference in the style of play under Steve McClaren from ex-coach Sven Goran-Eriksson.

Well, there was one difference. England were missing a midfielder who could consistently deliver good crosses to the strikers. I don't understand why there was such a popular push in England for Beckham to leave the national team. He was their best player at the World Cup. I feel like I'm taking crazy pills. Having said that, I would agree with taking Beckham out if the thinking is that he'll be too far past his prime in summer 2008 to play a big role on the team.

Frankly, they shouldn't need Beckham. England continues to have great depth at midfield. Against Macedonia, they dominated possession from the defense to the midfield. But there was no spark in the attack. Just like in the World Cup. The thing that baffles me is how the England national team fails to draw from the style of play in the English Premier league. Meanwhile, teams like Sweden, with a bunch of England-based players, tends attack with the English-style fast-paced passing. I just don't understand it.

England play Croatia tomorrow night: a much tougher match-up. I hope that the England offense starts to actually entertain as it should. Otherwise this could be a brutal couple of years following the team.

R.I.P. Glenn Myernick

I don't want to call Glenn my boy, because that's not exactly true, but I really liked him. I was unhappy to read that he was sick, and am sad to read today that he has died. RIP, Myernick.

They said about Warren Harding that although he might have been an awful president, he sure looked the part.

Let me say of Myernick that although I know nothing of his coaching abilities, he sure looked like he knew what he was doing. Bruce Arena was overweight and looked whiney. Outside of McBride, our players looked skinny and afraid. Myernick was different. Glenn Myernick consistently looked pissed off and mean. I loved it. U.S.A. soccer needs more of that.

Go Team.

For instance, there is this...

... from an AP article The Drudge Report linked to today where Sienna Miller rips the city of Pittsburgh:

"Earlier this year, Pittsburghers didn't take kindly when Rocky Mountain News columnist Bill Johnson called the city 'butt-ugly' in the run-up to the Super Bowl — which the hometown Steelers won."

No. Wrong, AP News. It should read " — which the hometown Steelers were gifted."

See what I mean? See how that's more accurate?

(Sienna Miller!)

Changes in latitudes, changes in attitudes

Remember all that fuss about Randy Moss pretend-mooning the Lambeau crowd a couple years back? Fans of Bill Simmons will surely remember how Joe Buck reacted to the TV cameras catching the incident. "That is a disgusting display! I'm sorry we showed that on camera!"

Well, Joey Barton of Manchester City did something quite similar to the Everton crowd at the end of a 1-1 draw this past weekend. The only difference was that he ACTUALLY dropped his shorts. (Perhaps notably, he also had his shirt off, having given it to a disabled fan.)


I couldn't help but laugh at imagining what Joe Buck would have said if he had been there. "Oh! OH! My...my eyes! I beg your forgiveness on behalf of the network, sponsors, and crew! That is a wretched, vile act and Joey Barton should be shot right now! Excuse me while I vomit!"

But tellingly, here's what Barton's coach, Stuart Pearce, has said: "He kept a smile on his face throughout the whole incident, and he's done something that, at worst, is a little bit childish. At best, it's a bit of comedy that everyone should laugh off..."

What are the odds that Joe Buck is a never-nude?

On the Mets

Well, clearly I was wrong about the Mets this year. I underestimated their offense. Carlos Beltran is a better player than I gave him credit for. Carlos Delgado was about as expected, a few more homeruns, but he was a real positive in the clubhouse, something I totally didn't expect.

I'm still glad we didn't trade Lastings Milledge for pitching. There's a few promising arms in the system right now that could pan out over the next couple years. And maybe we can sign somebody else in the off season.

Frankly, even with the shell of a pitching staff we could still make the world series. I'm sure New Yorkers, particularly the media, will be critical if they don't. But I am VERY pleased with how this season has gone and optimistic about the Mets being in the post-season for many years to come.