A New Hope?

Like many others who found nothing else on TV this weekend, I watched a little bit of the NFL Combine. One of the more ingenious things the NFL has done over the last 8 years was airing The Combine live on NFL Network. It finally gave losers like me a chance to see with my own eyes how a NFL Prospect performed, rather than have one of their "experts" tell me what he saw on Total Access later that evening.

If you haven't seen the NFL Combine before, it mildly flirts with homo-eroticism by showcasing these over-muscled and super humanly strong/fast young men in skin tight clothing. While wearing said clothing, these prospects are then asked to go through a litany of football drills. Exactly what purpose does it really serve? Depends on who you ask since the actual evaluators won't let their true feelings be known until Draft Day. Either way though, the NFL Combine has become must-see TV for all NFL Draft Enthusiasts, and I count myself among them.

As I was watching today, I had a bit of an epiphany. Robert Griffin III (RGIII) became the story of the day, as he ran a 4.41 40 yard dash. Obviously RGIII is no stranger to anyone who follows college football since he's the most recent Heisman Trophy winner. Somewhere during the telecast, this question randomly popped into my head:

"Why is Tim Tebow worshipped, and RGIII isn't?

After all, there's nothing individually that Tebow had done in college that RGIII hasn't. RGIII also won the Heisman as Tebow did. RGIII set all kinds of conference records with his performance on the field. Here's the kicker though, RGIII graduated college in December of 2010 with a degree in Political Science, mainly because he wanted to "...get my grad school paid for while I'm already under scholarship". RGIII is aspiring to become a lawyer, and is pursuing his masters in Communications.

In terms of who impresses me off the field? That's not even a contest. There's Tebow and his incessant "I love god, blah, blah, blah" speech that seems to be stuck on "repeat" anytime a microphone is shoved in front of him. Then there's RGIII, who makes prescient statements like "This is unbelievably believable...It's unbelievable because in the moment we're all amazed when great things happen. But it's believable because great things don't happen without hard work." while accepting his Heisman Trophy. Game. Set. Match RGIII.

On the field? We'll have to wait until next season to find out for sure, but for my money I'm going on the record right now, RGIII will be a better QB in his first season than Tebow ever will be for his entire career.

Mark it down, right now. It's already a fact that RGIII is much faster than Tebow. It's already a fact that RGIII has a stronger and more accurate arm than Tebow, and it will soon be fact that RGIII will be drafted much higher than Tebow was.

Which brings me back to my original question. Why isn't RGIII worshipped the same way Tebow was coming out of college? The easy answer is the God Complex which Tebow suffers from appeals to the stupid out there, while I have yet to hear if RGIII mention any reference to an afterlife. The ugly answer is that RGIII's skin tone doesn't match Tebow's, but I don't buy that. Neither answer serves as a satisfactory one for me.

In my opinion, the answer appears to be that the NFL audience hasn't gotten a chance to get to know RGIII in detail yet. The good news is, they will get to know all about him very soon. When they do get to know RGIII, they are going to be very impressed with what they see and hear, on and off the field.

My hope is that they will be so impressed, that Tebow eventually becomes the "Oh Yeah Tebow....whatever happened to that guy?"

One Shining Moment....Not To Be

Hello dear readers. I apologize for the lack of posts. I blame my personal ban of all things NBA and the month of February for my recent departure. The lack of relevant sports activity notwithstanding, I thought I would take a moment to share a recent sports adventure I had this past week.

Living in the Bay Area, my sports radio options are pretty limited. There's the self-appointed "Sports Leader" (and ESPN backed) KNBR, and for the better part of two decades it's been KNBR or KNBR, in terms of options. 

KNBR represents everything that's wrong with sports radio these days. The station practically oozes all things ESPN Corporate Policy, while parading nothing but insipid and syrup spewing hosts that claim to be "hard hitting" all the while sending me to my smart phone to listen to WSCR The Score. All of that changed this past summer with the premier of 95.7 The Game.

The Game, while still pretty far from a finished product, is a refreshing alternative to the ESPN Propaganda Machine that is KNBR. It is obvious anytime you listen to The Game's broadcasts, the opinions offered are strictly theirs, and are not tied to some money-making machine operating out of Bristol, CT. Their hosts actually have original thoughts, that are well informed in addition to having credibility behind them, while maintaining a connection to the alienated Bay Area Sports Fan. So it would seem only natural that The Game would start a contest called "Lucky Break".

What's "Lucky Break" you ask? It is a sports reality competition the station is having with the purpose of finding an ordinary listener and giving him/her a full time position as an on-air talk show host. Think of it as a sports equivalent of American Idol. Naturally I was intrigued, and (you guessed it) I decided to compete.

How did I do? I'll get to that in a moment. First I must set the scene. The competition itself has 4 preliminary tryouts, with the idea of selecting a total of 16 second round qualifiers out of the 4 tryouts. My schedule allowed me to compete in the second tryout last Wednesday. The tryout was located at a bar/restaurant about 2 minutes away from where I work. At the tryout there were 39 other hopefuls alongside of me, all with the same goal of qualifying for the next round.

The judges had me (along with dozens of others) give "The Big Opinion", in which I'm responsible for giving a 90 second long rant on any particular Bay Area Sports subject (it's not as easy as it sounds). I decided to give my opinion on whether or not Barry Bonds is a Hall Of Famer. Oh yeah...did I mention that I had give my opinion live in front of the judges as well as my fellow competitors and the entire audience at the bar?

Needless to say, it's a pretty nerve-wracking environment. If you don't possess the necessary chops to verbalize your knowledge of a particular subject, you run the risk of complete embarrassment and humiliation from both the judges and the audience. The pressure is really on you to deliver, and it takes a lot of courage and/or self-delusion depending on your perspective, to get up there to perform.

Despite all of that pressure, I went ahead with my audition anyway. After all, I do have a history of performing live in front of an audience (starred in a play in college), and I've been told numerous times that I can be very engaging. I owed it to myself to see if I was up to the challenge of putting aside my fear, and giving it the best that I've got.

Now the story would be great if I advanced to the next round, however that wasn't the case. It wasn't that I bombed you understand. As a matter of fact, I thought I did pretty well, and I wasn't alone. The judges themselves complimented me on my knowledge, delivery, vocal inflection, and passion. They were all unanimous that I did a "good job". As you'll see if you click on the link below, the judges were not holding back if somebody sucked, so it's not like the review of my performance was being sugar-coated! They made it pretty clear to me that I didn't suck, plus my fellow competitors felt I did a great job as well, as I received numerous compliments on my performance after I sat down.

Could/Should I be mad I didn't advance to the next round? Maybe. Am I mad about it? Not really. This wasn't necessarily about winning the competition, or advancing to the next round. This had more to do with proving to myself that I could take my supposed sports expertise with my ability to entertain, and put on a 90 second show for people while putting aside my fear of embarrassment. In that regard I consider myself successful.

Despite that consolation however, I still felt I should have advanced. You can click HERE to see the guys that did advance as well as the guys who bombed.

So even though I didn't advance, I still had a fun time. Chances like this don't come along everyday, and at the very least I rolled the dice so to speak. I guess I'll be "stuck" posting my random sports stupidity on this platform, to which I really appreciate you guys still reading.

I just wish I had some footage of my performance so you could judge for yourself.

Super Bowl Round Up

Super Bowl XLVI was a good game. Not a great game, or even a memorable game, but a very efficiently played, physical game which came down to the wire with the New York Giants emerging (once again) as world champions. While the game itself might not be memorable, the outcome and legacy certainly is. The Giants now have beaten the Team of the Decade twice in the last four Super Bowls.

Back to the game itself for a moment, it was very obvious to me that the Patriots were completely not prepared for the game on the outset. A 12 men on the field penalty early in  the game was the biggest reflection of that. Rob Gronkowski's high ankle sprain injury was the subject of the mandatory week-long hype and speculation, but "Gronk" ended up being a non-factor throughout the contest. 

The Patriot offense did manage to get it going late in the first half, scoring a quick ten points to enter halftime with a 10-9 lead. The Giants on the other hand ran an effective mix of run-pass offensively, while Eli Manning was on target most of the day going 30-40 for 296 yards and the MVP to boot.

Obviously the play of the game was the catch made by Mario Manningham on the first play of what proved to be the game-winning drive for the Giants. Manning made a terrific pass to even get the ball to Manningham who was double-covered on the 38 yard reception. After the catch, Manning took chunks of yards from the Patriots defense - 16 yards to Manningham here, 14 yards to Nicks there - eventually putting the Giants in position to score the winning touchdown. A touchdown which Ahmad Bradshaw reluctantly scored while running the ball for a 6 yard TD.

Even though Chris Collinsworth called Bradshaw's TD "a mistake by the Giants", it proved to be vital since it meant not only that Brady and the Patriot offense had just 57 seconds left to score, but they had to score a Touchdown rather than a field goal. This proved to be too tall a task, and in the end the Giants walked away with the Vince Lombardi Trophy.

As far as this game's legacy, it will be largely remembered for Brady failing to join Terry Bradshaw and Joe Montana as the only quarterbacks to win 4 Super Bowls. It will also serve as yet another dent in the Belichick armor in my opinion, since he's now 3-2 in Super Bowls as a head coach despite his Spygate tactics.

Many people are saying that this game will put Tom Coughlin and Eli Manning as "locks" for the Hall Of Fame now. I'm not one of those people and here's my reason why. Tom Flores and Jim Plunkett also won two Super Bowls within 4 seasons, yet neither one are in the Hall Of Fame. So why are Manning and Coughlin "locks" while Flores and Plunkett aren't? I don't get the logic in that?

Regardless, the Giants are champions today, and as a Bears fan it gives me hope watching a 9-7 team that was left for dead at one point, win the Super Bowl. It makes you wonder what else is possible?