Author: Jimmy Sullivan

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Is Pat Haden Really Fit to Be USC’s Athletic Director Anymore?

Former USC and NFL quarterback Pat Haden took over the Trojans’ Athletic Director gig from Mike Garrett on August 3, 2010.  He was walking into an unenviable situation, as the USC football program had been sanctioned by the NCAA in June with a two year bowl ban and the loss of 30 scholarships.  Pete Carroll, the team’s head coach, had left that year to coach for the Seahawks, and Garrett led the coaching search that yielded the unabated disaster that would become the Lane Kiffin era.

And yet, in light of recent events, the time has come to ask whether USC should retain Haden as their AD.

Kiffin’s 2010 and 2011 seasons were very successful, and the team even won 10 games in Kiffin’s second year in Los Angeles.  But things started to go downhill with an incredibly disappointing 7-6 2012 and a rough, albeit 3-1, start to 2013 that included a home loss to Washington State.  And when the Trojans traveled to Tempe to play Arizona State, everything unraveled.

After trailing 20-14 at halftime, the Trojans gave up 28 points in the third quarter, and the game was blown open.  According to all accounts, Haden met with USC brass in the third quarter of that game and decided to fire Kiffin after the game.  And he wasted no time, either: he notified Lane that he would be fired in the terminal at LAx; did I mention that this all happened at 3 A.M. PT?  That was Haden’s first mistake; not firing Kiffin, but rather doing so in the manner he did.

After this, Ed Orgeron would take over and get the Trojans program revitalized and nationally potent again.  Before that Orgeron was famous for two things: being Ole Miss’ head coach from 2005-2007 and Michael Oher’s college coach in The Blind Side (and real life). That was his only stint as a Division I head coach, and he was a grand total of three conference games in as many years with the program.  It didn’t seem like the move would work out.

Of course, it did.  Orgeron had his team playing hard and winning games again.  The USC program was back, and Orgeron’s brief stint as USC head coach culminated in a stunning home win over #4 Stanford on November 16.

It seemed like Orgeron would have the job for good after going 6-2 to finish the season, but a loss to cross-town rival UCLA in the final week sealed his fate.  Haden and the USC Athletic Department opted to go in a different direction. They decided that, instead of keeping Orgeron, it would be better to hire then-Washington head coach Steve Sarkisian. The Orgeron era was over, and he resigned once he was passed over for the head coaching job.

How would an Orgeron regime have fared in the ever-copmetitve Pac-12? No one knows, but Bleacher Report’s Adam Kramer wrote about what could have been Monday:

Having failed at Ole Miss, many assumed Orgeron was not equipped to handle a job of such magnitude over the long haul. But everything aligned. He was different. The program was different. And, perhaps most importantly, he had the unwavering support of his players, many of whom he could still be coaching. The true value of this could have snowballed into something grand.

How grand is a question that will never be answered. At the bare minimum, it would have been much, much different.

Picking a head coach is an inexact science, to say the least. It’s a process that fails far more often than it succeeds. In many interim instances, athletic directors and administrations would much rather test drive a current regime without a financial penalty attached and decide six months later whether they want to proceed.

That, however, is not the way this profession works. Well, in most cases.

Choosing Sarkisian over Orgeron seemed, at the time, like the right decision.  Of course, hindsight is 20/20, and now we can confidently say it wasn’t.

Ironically enough, the Sarkisian epoch at USC got off to a really strange start.  In a game at Stanford on September 6, 2014, Sarkisian had grown rather unhappy with some calls that had not gone his team’s way.  Instead of simply complaining to the referees about it, he decided to go the extra mile and actually text Haden from his cell phone and ask him to come down to the sidelines.

The best part is, Haden acted like receiving a text message from the head coach to come to the sidelines and argue with referees was a completely normal, weekly occurrence.  For example, can you imagine if Carroll had texted Seahawks’ GM John Schneider before the last play of the Super Bowl last year, asking him what play to run? I’m not 100% sure how that would have turned out, but my guess would be Schneider would have said, “Run it”, and the Seahawks would have won back to back Super Bowls.  But that didn’t happen.

Anyway, the team went 8-4 in the 2014 regular season, winning the 2014 Holiday Bowl over Nebraska.  Going into 2015, the thought around college football was that USC might have its most talented roster since the days of Pete and a chance to compete for a national championship.  After two wins to start the season, things got off the rails with a home 41-31 loss to Stanford in Week 3 and an ugly Week 5, Thursday night 17-12 loss to Washington.

And then the real trouble came.

We all found out about it on Sunday afternoon, with this report from Fox Sports’ Bruce Feldman:

Sarkisian’s drinking has been somewhat well publicized in the past. While it really hasn’t come into focus until this season, Sunday isn’t the first occurrence of his drinking getting in the way of his work.

Earlier this year, the University held a Salute to Troy event for alumni and donors to kick off the season.  Sarkisian was at the event, but he really wasn’t all there.  While I couldn’t find a full video of the speech, this is the important part, in which he is clearly intoxicated, slurs his words, and drops an f-bomb:

Sarkisian would be fired by USC on Monday, and replaced by offensive coordinator Clay Helton for the rest of the regular season.

Before wrapping up this article, I’d like to take a moment to digress and say that I hope Coach Sark can get the help he needs.  Addiction is a very difficult disease to overcome; here’s to hoping we see Sark on the good side of this when all is said and done.

Going back to Haden; this is where USC is now.  Their football program is in disarray, and at least part of that needs to be put on the shoulders of the athletic director.  The Salute to Troy episode just maybe should have been a sign that the football coach was in dire need of help; after all, his drinking problem dates back well before he was the head football coach at USC.  That ugly night should have been a sign of trouble, but instead, Haden pressed forward with what turned out to be a disastrous hire.

Oh, and I haven’t even mentioned the fact that the basketball program has not won an NCAA Tournament game since he took over as AD.  His straight outta Dunk City hire of Andy Enfield has gone 23-41 in two seasons, and probably needs to turn the program around in the next year or two if he hopes to have long-term success at the school.

But, going back to football, Haden kind of, sort of, maybe got the Trojans into this mess, with the hire of Sarkisian and the rejection of Orgeron.  Now, he has to get them out of it with his next hire.

As far as I’m concerned, he’s lucky he even has one.

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Matt Hasselbeck’s Outplaying of Andrew Luck Is Just the Least of the Colts’ Problems

On the very surface, this would seem like a ridiculous discourse to engage in.  Luck is one of the best quarterbacks in the league and has reached the Pro Bowl in each of his first three seasons in the NFL. He’s arguably carried the Indianapolis Colts on his shoulders every year since he was drafted, and his team would not have gotten as far as it did without his leadership and play at the position.

On the other hand, his backup Matt Hasselbeck has also reached three Pro Bowls… but he’s in his 17th season.  He hasn’t been a regular starter on an NFL team since 2012 and has been Luck’s backup since ’13.  He’s 40 now, and this may be his final season.  An accomplished career that started with him backing up Brett Favre in Green Bay will end with him backing up Andrew Luck in Indy… or will it?

Luck was ruled out of the team’s week 4 game against Jacksonville with a shoulder injury, and, with the team playing on Thursday night against Houston, he had little time to recover and missed that game as well (the NFL should scrap TNF, but that’s for another time).  In the meantime, Hasselbeck has filled in, and while he has played two inferior opponents, the Colts have won both games.

And, in a much more troubling development, Hasselbeck has outplayed Andrew Luck.

This isn’t an opinion, it’s a fact.  And the numbers back it up:

I would call this a minor issue, but that wouldn’t give this conundrum justice.  Hasselbeck has clearly played better, but Luck is clearly the Colts’ franchise quarterback; he has to play, right?  But even when Luck comes back, the team will still have plenty of issues to sort out.

Such as this one: they’ve been playing really bad football.  While they’re 3-2 and obviously in the driver’s seat in the AFC South, they basically got hammered by the Bills and Jets in the first two weeks of the season.  In each of the past three weeks, they’ve been taken deep into games in the last three weeks by the Titans (with Luck), Jaguars, and Texans (the last two with Hasselbeck).

Are they going to make the playoffs?  Of course they are, for the simple reason of the three teams they’ve beaten over the last three weeks.  But, as Gary Davenport of Bleacher Report writes, once they get there, they may not do very much:

But the next few weeks, as the Colts begin to face opponents that aren’t covered in frosting, are going to serve as an excellent barometer for what will happen in those playoffs—for what’s going to happen when that erratic offense and nonexistent defense have to square off against the AFC’s best.

And if the first five weeks of the 2015 season are any indication, the same thing is going to happen that happened to the Colts in Weeks 1 and 2.

They’re going to get pounded.

Well, yeah.  They are going to get pounded.  If the Buffalo and New York games are any indication, they will be unequipped to handle even fringe playoff teams.  They have myriad issues, but this is where they start: their defense, or lack thereof.

This is how the first five offenses the Colts have faced have faired against them, with the quarterbacks of those teams in parentheses.  It isn’t too pretty:

  1. Buffalo Bills (Tyrod Taylor): 342 yards
  2. New York Jets (Ryan Fitzpatrick): 344 yards
  3. Tennessee Titans (Marcus Mariota): 433 yards
  4. Jacksonville Jaguars (Blake Bortles): 431 yards
  5. Houston Texans (Ryan Mallett/Brian Hoyer): 444 yards

That isn’t good, but the problem gets magnified when you consider the quarterbacks the Colts will be facing the next three weeks: Tom Brady, Drew Brees, and Cam Newton.  Based on prior results, there’s little reason to think that Indy can do anything to stop them.

Another problem of theirs?  Their new playmakers, and how they haven’t performed.  The team added running back Frank Gore and wide receiver Andre Johnson through free agency this past offseason; couple that with the addition of wide receiver Philip Dorsett through the draft and you should get a very dangerous looking assortment of offensive weapons.  Of course, through five games, that hasn’t exactly been the case.

Johnson has 13 catches for 128 yards and two touchdowns.  These numbers should be taken with a grain of salt, however; 77 of those yards came and six of the receptions came in the win against Houston, and in the two games before that, Johnson had approximately zero catches.  Both of his touchdowns came against his former team, and he has been rather inconsistent so far this season.

Gore has been okay to decent in his first year away from San Francisco, but he too has been inconsistent.  He’s come alive recently, with games of 86 and 98 yards coming within the last three weeks. Wedged in between, though, is a 53-yard game against Jacksonville, and before the Tennessee game, 31 and 57-yard performances against the Bills and Jets.  He’s also lost two fumbles so far this season, which is just another thing to worry as the Colts go forward.

And as for Dorsett, he only has eight catches through the first five weeks, more or less acting as a non-factor.  He hasn’t caught for more than 45 in any game this year and only has one touchdown; to call him a disappointment to this point would be a colossal understatement.

This is the heart of the matter: there is an unfathomable number of issues with the latest version of the Indianapolis Colts.  Coach Chuck Pagano is on one of the hottest seats in the NFL (not right, but that’s just the way it is) and his team has struggled mightily to a 3-2 start. The team will make the playoffs and win the division, but this will occur only because of the teams that comprise the remainder of the AFC South.

The colts should be thankful to be sitting at 3-2; they could be 0-5.  But they should also realize that they are a deeply flawed team.

A deeply flawed team that also happens to have issues with its quarterback(s).

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Wild and Crazy: Predicting the MLB Wild Card Games

And then there were ten.  It’s that time again, the time for us baseball fans to sit back and enjoy some October baseball.  It’s also the time for us to pick those games correctly… or at least try to.

Last year’s playoffs gave us two Wild Card teams, the Royals and Giants, playing in the World Series.  Only one team (the Orioles) that had home-field advantage in the Division Series moved on to the LCS, and no series went more than five games until the World Series, which went seven.  To be completely forthright, until the Fall Classic, the postseason was a real clunker, and if it weren’t for that legendary Giants-Royals series, well, the postseason of 2014 would have lived on as one of the least competitive of recent memory.

However, it did have its moments.  This one, in my opinion, was its best, the Travis Ishikawa, modern-day “Giants Win the Pennant” home run:

But that was a year ago, and this is now.  Only four of the ten teams in last year’s playoffs are back this year (Cardinals, Royals, Pirates, Dodgers).  Those teams will be accompanied by six new ones (Blue Jays, Rangers, Astros, Yankees, Mets, Cubs).  This year’s playoffs are wide open, one of the most interesting Octobers in recent memory. When I called these predictions wild guesses, well, you know, they are.  But I’ll try to get them right anyway.

So here they are.  I’ll pick both Wild card games as well as every series, and each prediction will be accompanied by a brief explanation.  I may get all or none of these right because your guess is as good as mine when it comes to this year’s postseason.

Let’s get to it; we’ll start on the AL side and then work our way to the National League.

AL Wild Card Game: Astros at Yankees

Little known fact: Brett Anderson of the Dodgers leads baseball in ground ball percentage this season (66.3%).  Take a guess who’s second.

It’s the Astros’ Dallas Keuchel.

Keuchel just so happens to be pitching against the Yankees in the AL Wild Card game, and his ground ball-inducing tendencies just may be perfect for a one-game playoff in the ultimate hitters’ park, Yankee Stadium.

Both lineups do pose threats to Keuchel and the Yankees’ starter, Masahiro Tanaka.  Both teams cleared the 200 home run mark this season and are never really out of a game.  But if this one does end up being a shootout, favor Houston: the Yankees are without arguably their best home run hitter in Mark Teixiera.  Greg Bird has filled in admirably (even well) at first base but he is both a batting and fielding downgrade.  The Yanks will likely miss Tex here.

This game will likely be a decent to high-scoring affair; Tanaka has struggled recently and Keuchel has never pitched on three days’ rest. While the Yankees undoubtedly have a better bullpen, they be behind and unable to get the game to Dellin Betances and Andrew Miller.

I’m taking Houston to come into Yankee Stadium, take the Wild Card game, and be on to Kansas City Thursday.

Prediction: Astros 7, Yankees 5

NL Wild Card Game: Cubs at Pirates

This is actually what the Wild Card game was made for.  This game will, I believe, be the best Wild Card Game since its inception in 2012. It’s mainly because of the two teams in it and the pitchers they’re sending out to the hill to start the game.

The Pirates will be making the safe choice and starting their ace, Gerrit Cole.  This is a no-brainer; Cole has had an excellent year and is ninth in the game among pitchers in WAR.  He leads a very good, 98-win Buccos team into battle against the Cubs on Wednesday night.

As for the Cubs, they’ll be starting the man who is currently the best pitcher in the game: Jake Arrieta.

ESPN Stats and Info put together a recap of Arrieta’s second half to date, and it has been historic:

Jake Arrieta has a 0.41 ERA in 12 starts since the start of August. From ELIAS: That’s by far the lowest ERA from August on in a season since earned runs became official in 1913 (minimum 10 starts).

Arrieta’s 236 strikeouts were a big part to the Chicago Cubs setting a new record for most strikeouts in a single season by National League team’s pitchers, breaking the 2003 Cubs record of 1,404 strikeouts. Including their win against the Brewers Friday, Cubs pitchers have struck out 1,414 batters.

That’s insane.

Arrieta has gone out of his mind since the All-Star break and been a big reason for the Cubs’ second half surge and 97-win season.  There isn’t much more to say about his performance that hasn’t already been said, and the prospect of him starting in a one game playoff should have the Pirates very concerned, even with their potent lineup.

This game could have easily been the NLCS; it at least should have been a first-round series.  Instead, we’ll only get one game of this.

That being said, this will be a game for the ages.  While you never know what will happen in a one-game playoff, this is why it exists. Both aces will be starting, and this one won’t disappoint.

As for a prediction, well, it’s difficult.  While I chose the Pirates to come out of the NL in April, with Jake Arrieta’s recent dominance, it’s hard to think the Bucs’ lineup will be able to do serious damage against him.  In a close one and an all-time classic, the Cubs win in extras.

Prediction: Cubs 2, Pirates 1

What’s right?  What’s wrong?  Let me know in the comments section and, more importantly, enjoy the baseball this month!

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Don’t Count Alabama Out Just Yet

Alabama-Georgia may be, save for Notre Dame-Clemson, the biggest game of this college football weekend.  While Alabama has already endured a home loss to Ole Miss in week 3, a win today in Athens would easily put them right back in the Playoff picture.  However, another loss probably knocks them out of any possible contention for a spot in the sport’s final four.  So, it would be safe to assert that this game is pretty darn big to Alabama, and maybe not so much for Georgia.

As for the Bulldogs, the game against the Tide most likely represents the biggest game of their season.  Trips to Auburn, Tennessee and Georgia Tech still remain, but if Georgia wins, they have a real chance to be undefeated going into the SEC Title Game.

And the oddsmakers like Georgia as well; they’re a 2-point favorite. Which is, in simplest terms, a mistake.

This year’s Alabama team is undoubtedly weaker than last year’s, losing standouts such as safety Landon Collins, linebacker Trey DePriest, quarterback Blake Sims, and, most of all, wide receiver Amari Cooper and running back T.J. Yeldon.  Nick Saban, Lane Kiffin, Kirby Smart and staff have had something of a difficult time replacing these departed players, and this year’s team has likely taken a step back from last year’s Playoff squad.

So far, they’ve suffered for having this much turnover.  After a week one win over Wisconsin in Jerry World AT&T Stadium and a 37-10 victory over Middle Tennessee the week after, Ole Miss came into Bryant-Denney Stadium and, for certain long portions of the game, handed the Tide their lunch.  Alabama would end up going down 43-37 that night, and while the Rebels absolutely should have won by more than six points, this play was the difference in the game: (While watching this unhinged play never gets old, it turned out to be an enormous play when all was said and done.)

So that being said, there is both a statistical and historical argument to be made for an Alabama win on Saturday.

I found this tweet in an article by SBNation’s Bill Connelly (I’ll get back to that later) that, to be honest with you, kind of startled me. This is from ESPN’s David Hale, on Greyson Lambert and how he handles (or doesn’t handle) pressure:

So, if Alabama’s pass rush can get through to Lambert, it’ll be a long day for Georgia’s offense.  Of course, they may very well not get through to Lambert, and that may be an issue.  Back to that Connelly article:

It’s been a while since Alabama’s had an impressive pass rush. That’s partially by design; Saban’s and Kirby Smart’s defense is based on leverage, swarming and gang tackling more than risk. But the baseline sack rate has still been lower than preferred over the last couple of seasons.

The needle seems to be pointed up. Alabama ranks 42nd in Adj. Sack Rate; the Tide aren’t generating a ton of pressure on passing downs, but linemen Jonathan Allen and Da’Shawn Hand are beating linemen by themselves. They have combined for 5.5 sacks, while everybody else on the team has just 4.5.

Pressure could be vital. Alabama’s secondary is still the weakest link in the defense, and Greyson Lambert has proven that, when given time, he can do devastating things. Since beginning the Vanderbilt game 0-for-7 against the Commodores’ increasingly tricky defense, he has completed 44 of 49 for 592 yards.

With that, we can most likely wrap up the statistical argument right here.  Now, it’s time to delve into the historical argument behind why Alabama should go into Saturday favored instead of being a two-point underdog.

Since 2012, Alabama has remarkably only lost five times.  I’m excluding 2011 because they’re only loss that season was to #1 LSU in the greatest 9-6 game in college football history.  But think about that for a second; five times.  Over the course of 3+ seasons.  That’s amazing.  But this historical argument is about the teams they lost to, so let’s look at that.

In 2012, they lost at home to Texas A&M in large part due to the heroics of that year’s Heisman Trophy winner, Johnny Manziel.  Who remembers this play?


The Tide went on to win a national title that year, overpowering Notre Dame 42-14 in Miami.  The A&M loss was their only defeat in an otherwise perfect season.  The point is, A&M’s was an offense designed to spread out the opponent, something Alabama was simply not ready for.

Fast forward to 2013 and Alabama had won their first 11 games in hopes of a three-peat.  There was one, final, looming task in front of them to complete an undefeated regular season, and it came in the person of the Auburn Tigers.  While Alabama’s inability to kick a field goal (and their continued attempts at doing so) played a large part in the final outcome of the game, plays like this one did too.  Here is the game tying touchdown for Auburn, a play that is as spread offense as it gets.

Their next loss would come in their next game, against yet another spread offense in the Oklahoma Sooners.  OU quarterback Trevor Knight had the game of his life, throwing for 348 yards and four touchdowns.  Alabama simply couldn’t keep up, and would go on to lose 45-31.

A year later, the Tide, out for revenge after the disappointing finish to the previous season’s campaign, went into their game at Ole Miss ranked as the #1 team in the land.  While their defense did better against Hugh Freeze’s spread, they would go on to lose 23-17. Another spread offense had beaten the mighty Tide.

Finally, the team made the inaugural College Football Playoff as the #1 seed, despite having lost in the regular season.  Their opponent in the semifinal would be Ohio State, a team, and spread offense, on its third-string quarterback, Cardale Jones.  While Jones didn’t have that great of a game statistically (18-35, 243 yards, one touchdown, one interception), the Buckeyes rushed for almost 300 yards behind Ezekiel Elliott.  It was as shocking a game as there was in college football last season, and it happened for one simple reason: Alabama could not stop Ohio State’s spread look.

So what’s the point in me saying all this?  Well, Georgia is not a spread offense.  While Nick Chubb has had an amazing start to his season and even elicited absurd comparisons to Herschel Walker, the offense won’t be working the perimeter of the field like 2012 Texas A&M, 2013 Auburn, 2013 Oklahoma, 2014 and 2015 Ole Miss, and 2014 Ohio State were able to.  They’ll be playing in the trenches, which may bode well for Bama.  And, in case you haven’t figured it out, I’m predicting that the Tide will roll in Athens.

But no matter what the result of today’s game is, there is one thing that needs to be certain here: it’s way too early to count out Nick Saban and the Crimson Tide.

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The MLB Awards, At (Near) the End of the Season, Part II

This is the second part of the MLB end of the season awards.  The first part of these awards was published Friday, and you can find them here.  The same rules apply; I don’t care what you call them, but they are my choices for the remaining major awards.

This post will cover the rookies and managers that have separated themselves from the rest of baseball’s pack.  Of course, my choices aren’t necessarily going to be winners for each league; rather, they are the people who I think are worthy of the honor of receiving these awards.  Again, the season has been competitive and interesting.  The award races are the same way.

Let’s get things going with the Rookies of the Year for each league.

AL Rookie of the Year: Carlos Correa, Houston Astros

This is a very close race, with Correa, the Twins’ Miguel Sano and the Indians’ Francisco Lindor all being worthy of consideration for the award.  However, I’m giving a very slight edge to the Astros’ shortstop for a couple of reasons.

One of them?  He actually hasn’t really done anything badly.  He’s hit for average (.282), power (21 home runs) and even has 12 steals to boot this year.  His promotion on June 8 has helped the Astros get past some of their first-year-of-contention struggles with their current core, so he’s been rather critical for the 2017 World Series champs.

Recently, YahooSports’ Mike Oz wrote a piece about the importance of Correa and Jose Altuve to the Astros’ chances in this postseason and beyond.  That said piece contained some crazy stats about just how good Correa has been this season.  Here are some of them:

Correa was the No. 1 overall selection in the 2012 MLB draft, coming out of the Puerto Rico Baseball Academy and High School. The Astros gave him a $4.8 million signing bonus when he put his name on a contract. Ever since, he’s been one of the most hyped prospects in the game and that’s continued into this season. He might win the AL Rookie of the Year Award after hitting .279/.345/.507 with 19 homers and 56 RBIs. Some were calling him the best shortstop in the American League only a month into his career. His 3.1 Wins Above Replacement, according to Fangraphs, is second among Astros position players. Altuve, naturally, is No. 1.

Before he even played in the big leagues, Correa was compared to Derek Jeter. Talk about high expectations. It wasn’t just for his skillset, but the aura of leadership he emits. Correa has a presence about him. He’s 6-feet-4, lean but solid, with a big smile and good knack for saying the right thing. He’s polished, poised and ready to be a star, on the field and off it.

Well, that’s true.  It can be argued that Correa has been one of the Astros’ MVPs this season (beside Dallas Keuchel and Altuve) and the team’s hopes for a deep playoff run likely rest, at least partially, on his shoulders.

But let’s appreciate what he is in the 2015 season: the American League Rookie of the Year.

Top 5

  1. Carlos Correa
  2. Miguel Sano (Twins)
  3. Francisco Lindor (Indians)
  4. Billy Burns (Athletics)
  5. Roberto Osuna (Blue Jays)

NL Rookie of the Year: Kris Bryant, Chicago Cubs

Well, we go from a really close race to a… not really close race.

I wrote in August about how at that time, I thought that the NL Rookie of the Year should have been the Giants’ Matt Duffy.  This is how I ended that article, which was published on August 4:

Right.  Matt Duffy is the most valuable rookie in the NL.

By writing this, I’m not trying to say that Duffy should definitely win Rookie of the Year; there is a lot of baseball yet to be played.  His sudden power surge may end and his numbers might just fall back down to earth.  However, if he keeps up his current pace, I definitely think he should win the award.  If he does, it will be the ultimate surprise in a season full of them.

And it will be a surprise because no one talks about him.

 

Yes, it would have been a surprise to see Duffy win the most prestigious rookie award in the game.  What’s less surprising is the end result; it isn’t happening.

Duffy actually has kept up his pace since then, but Bryant has exceeded his, and by a lot.  While he’s struck out a lot (182 times!), he’s also hit third in a playoff lineup (as a rookie) and is about to drive in 100 runs, which is difficult for a 10-year veteran, let alone for a newcomer.

When you combine the performance of Bryant with the faltering of Joc Pederson and the general lack of qualification of the other rookies, this becomes very easy.  It’s Kris Bryant, in a landslide only previously seen by 1984 Ronald Reagan.

Top 5

  1. Kris Bryant
  2. Matt Duffy (Giants)
  3. Jung Ho Kang (Pirates)
  4. Noah Syndergaard (Mets)
  5. Justin Bour (Marlins)

AL Manager of the Year: Paul Molitor, Minnesota Twins

Paul Molitor took over as manager of the Twins this offseason, and it would’ve been easy to understand him if he didn’t expect much.  With a roster that was probably a year or two away from contention, the Twins were headed for another last place finish.

Molitor came into this season with no managerial experience, and while his career and his baseball knowledge were respected, his managerial instincts were undoubtedly going to come into question. And while he probably hasn’t been perfect, he has exceeded anyone’s expectations, and so has his team.

Going into Monday’s action, the Twins found themselves a half game out of the American League’s second Wild Card and a full year ahead of schedule.  While the Twins only have a +5 run differential this year, they are alive and well for a playoff spot in the very poor American League.

However, while this is important, it isn’t a be-all-end-all.  For example, the Rangers are 84-71 with a +9 run differential.  Their record in one-run games is 26-20, while the Twins’ is 21-20.  So while the Rangers will probably win their division, they have more or less done so on luck, while the Twins have made it to 80-75 with almost the same differential.

While the Rangers’ Jeff Banister can make a solid case for being Manager of the Year, I’m giving to Molitor.  And that is the case whether the Twins are in the playoffs or not.

Top 3

  1. Paul Molitor
  2. Jeff Banister (Rangers)
  3. A.J. Hinch (Astros)

NL Manager of the Year: Joe Maddon, Chicago Cubs

In a very tight race between Maddon and the Mets’ Terry Collins, I’m giving the slightest of edges to Maddon.

His quirky style has worked wonders for the Cubs this season, and while they’ll be (wrongly) subjected to a one-game playoff against the Cardinals or Pirates, they’ve won 90 games and will yield the Rookie of the Year and maybe even the Cy Young winner.

The Cubs won 73 games last year under Rick Renteria, good for last in their division.  This year, the team won’t be losing 73 games.  Led by Jake Arrieta, Kris Bryant and MVP-candidate (at least he should be) Anthony Rizzo, the Cubs are going to have the biggest turnaround in the National League this year, and that’s all because of Joe Maddon.

He’s had snakes and magicians in the clubhouse.  He’s managed bullpen games in elimination games.  He’s even offered drinks to reporters.  And now he’ll have a third Manager of the Year trophy.

Top 3

  1. Joe Maddon (Cubs)
  2. Terry Collins (Mets)
  3. Mike Matheny (Cardinals)

Let me know your opinion in the comments section!

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The MLB Awards, At (Near) the End of the Season, Part I

Call them the Sully Awards.  Call them the SullyOnSports awards. Actually, call them whatever you want because I really don’t care.

These are my thoughts on the MLB awards for the 2015 season.  These players (and managers; they’re people too) have separated themselves from the rest this year, having seasons for the ages and leading their teams to the playoffs.  Of course, what I would do with my ballot is not necessarily in alignment with popular thought, and my choices don’t really reflect what will actually happen with the awards.  But it’s been a really fun, competitive season in baseball, and a lot of the award races are the same way.

I’ll do the MVP and Cy Young awards in this post.  The Rookie of the Year and Manager of the Year winners for both leagues will be a separate post.  So let’s get down to business.

AL MVP: Josh Donaldson, Toronto Blue Jays

This one is much closer than you think.  Donaldson leads the American League in runs scored, RBI, and most significantly, WAR. His heroics led the Blue Jays through a mediocre 50-51 showing in the season’s first 101 games.  The team’s season changed, however, on July 28, when the Jays landed star shortstop Troy Tulowitzki.  Two days later, they acquired pitcher David Price and were well on their way.

However, there is another MVP candidate that should be discussed, and it’s Mike Trout.  Trout, the AL MVP from last season, may be having his best season yet, setting career highs in home runs and slugging percentage.  He is second to Donaldson in WAR, but the difference is minuscule (8.2 to 8.1).

And as Rob Arthur of FiveThirtyEight writes, that stat may not even tell us all we need to know:

However, like all statistical estimates, WAR calculations come with uncertainty. Here’s where things get pretty statsy, so bear with me: You’re about to get a crash course in confidence intervals. The true value of a player varies from what you find on the leaderboard — but we’re not sure by how much. That’s because of sample size. Although a whole season of baseball seems like a lot, it still doesn’t provide enough data to allow us to be completely sure of each player’s value. So Harper’s 8 WAR could be 6 or it could be 10, but the number on the leaderboard represents our best guess.

When the uncertainty about a player is small, we can be more sure that the player who looks like the best really is the best. If the uncertainty increases, though, we become less able to distinguish his performance from those of his competitors. Trying to determine the magnitude of this uncertainty is tricky, but it’s an important part of good statistical practice.

All right, I think we get it.  It’s very close, but I’ll take Donaldson, because being the best player on what will probably be the best team going into October does bear some weight in this discussion.  While I don’t think of that as the be-all-end-all, with such a small difference between these two players, we’ll use it as the tiebreaker.  And Donaldson will win the award, for one simple, stupid reason: voter fatigue.

Top 5

  1. Josh Donaldson
  2. Mike Trout (Angels)
  3. Chris Davis (Orioles)
  4. Edwin Encarnacion (Blue Jays)
  5. Nelson Cruz (Mariners)

NL MVP: Bryce Harper, Washington Nationals

I wrote back in July that I thought Paul Goldschmidt should be the National League’s MVP.  This is what I wrote back then (edited, because I repeated the same line twice in the span of a few lines):

Anyway, this discussion, as you can already tell, is extremely complicated.  Harper’s team has done better this season, record-wise (three games up on the Mets in the woeful NL East) , but it’s hard to argue that the Diamondbacks would be where they are right now (42-42) without Goldschmidt.  While Harper’s slugging percentage, OPS, and on-base percentage are better than Goldschmidt’s, I’m giving Goldschmidt the advantage.  The advantage for all of the above listed reasons, as well as a very simple one: the acronym MVP stands for “Most Valuable Player”.  If the award was for “Most Outstanding Player”, Harper would be the clear-cut winner.  But Goldschmidt has been more valuable for his team this season, and the stats demonstrate that.

Goldschmidt has the edge here.

Well, what can I say?  I didn’t necessarily say that Goldschmidt was going to hold on to the award, I just said that he was in the lead on July 10.  And since then, the debate has gone from “complicated” to “duh”.

Harper leads Goldschmidt in every major category except for stolen bases and RBI.  However, Harper has less ABs than Goldy, and would likely pass him in RBI (he has no chance of catching him in steals; he’s down 21-6) had he gotten 43 more plate appearances, which is the difference between the two.

This, unlike the AL award, is as clear-cut as it gets.  Harper’s team losing is simply not his fault, and if it weren’t for him, there is no telling where the Nationals would be.  For that, he’s the obvious MVP.

Top 5

  1. Bryce Harper
  2. Paul Goldschmidt (Diamondbacks)
  3. Andrew McCutchen (Pirates)
  4. Joey Votto (Reds)
  5. Yoenis Cespedes (Mets)

AL Cy Young: David Price, Toronto Blue Jays

The Canadian flavor continues here as David Price is my choice for the Cy Young.  Price was always in the running for this award, but he has really separated himself recently, as Jayson Stark points out:

That’s the kicker here: recency bias.  And I’m completely guilty of it, but Price has been the best pitcher in the AL of late, and probably the best pitcher for the season, as well.

Also, Price has gotten better as the season has gone along, unlike some of his competitors for the award.  Anthony Witrado of Bleacher Report wrote about this yesterday:

The main one is Houston Astros ace Dallas Keuchel, who has earned that ace title over his last two seasons and pitched to a 2.51 ERA, 2.90FIP and 1.023 WHIP this year. He is also 18-8 with a chance to win 20 games, and even though wins as a stat have been mostly discredited in this era, we still celebrate that milestone as a high level of excellence.

It is also possible that Keuchel’s stumble last week will cost him the Cy Young Award. In a start against the Texas Rangers in the Astros’ most critical series of the season, he lasted just 4.2 innings and was torched for nine runs, six of them in the first inning to sink his team before the Rangers even made three outs.

Price has also guided his team to the verge of a division crown, and at worst, an assured playoff berth.  That should be more than enough to win him the award, even if he’s only played with the Blue Jays for two months.

Top 5

  1. David Price
  2. Dallas Keuchel (Astros)
  3. Sonny Gray (Athletics)
  4. Chris Sale (White Sox)
  5. Chris Archer (Rays)

NL Cy Young: Jake Arrieta, Chicago Cubs

Recency bias strikes again here, and again, I think it’s right to go with the guy who has pitched the best down the stretch of this season: Jake Arrieta.

Arrieta has been the best pitcher in baseball for the last month, and the combination of him and Jon Lester in the playoffs is making the Cubbies look more and more dangerous by the day.  While Lester is still an outstanding pitcher, he’s had somewhat of a rough season this year (whatever this is not withstanding.)

And the race between Arrieta and the two Dodgers in this race (Zack Greinke and Clayton Kershaw) has become really close recently, a fact that Sports Illustrated’s Cliff Corcoran attests to:

Arrieta is pitching so well that Greinke isn’t even guaranteed to finish the year with the league’s best ERA, a distinction which provides the bulk of the argument for his winning this award. If Greinke allows three earned runs in seven innings in each of his final two starts, he’ll finish with a 1.79 ERA, a mark Arrieta would match by allowing just one earned run in 15 innings in his last two starts. That might sound like a lot to ask from Arrieta if not for the fact that he allowed just one earned run in 17 innings over his last two starts and two earned runs in 54 innings over his last seven (0.33 ERA).

I still expect Greinke to finish with the league’s best ERA, but Arrieta could make things close enough that the ERA crown won’t be enough to bring Greinke the award. Meanwhile, Kershaw has three chances to make his own case, which will be based on his likely innings lead and his significant advantages in strikeout rate and strikeout-to-walk ratio. Speaking of which: With 272 strikeouts on the season and three starts remaining, Kershaw has an outside chance to become the first pitcher to whiff 300 men in a season since Randy Johnson in 2002. As it stands, he need just six strikeouts to reach the highest total since Johnson’s 290 in 2004.

This race is very, very close, and it may even hinge on the very end of the season for each team.  However, Arrieta has a slight edge because of how dominant he has been over the most important stretch of the season.

Top 5

  1. Jake Arrieta
  2. Clayton Kershaw (Dodgers)
  3. Zack Greinke (Dodgers)
  4. Gerrit Cole (Pirates)
  5. Madison Bumgarner (Giants)

What did I get right and what did I get wrong?  Please let me know in the comments section.  Also, the second half of this post (Rookie of the Year, Manager of the Year) will be out soon, most likely on Monday. Thanks for reading!

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Who Should Be College Football’s Number One? You Tell Me

If you weren’t around to digest all of the action in college football this weekend, well, sorry.  Week 3 of the season brought the first (and probably not the last) Saturday of wild and wacky happenings, as Ole Miss beat Alabama, Ohio State looked ready to lose to Northern Illinois, and SEC West ex-hopefuls Auburn and Arkansas withered against LSU and Texas Tech, respectively.  And while there weren’t exactly that many upsets, per se, this Saturday just felt… different.

This is why it was different: virtually every team in the top 10 got tested in some fashion.  #1 ranked Ohio State was pushed to the brink by the pesky Huskies of Northern Illinois.  For basically the entire game, the Bucks looked terrible, and even made a QB change from Cardale Jones to JT Barrett in the second quarter; Jones threw two picks in the early going.  It’s worth noting that they did win 20-13, but so many questions remain for the defending champs.

As for Alabama, they encountered an even worse fate.  They would be dispatched by Ole Miss in a tight, high-scoring, and rather long 43-37 affair.  While Ole Miss did have some luck in pulling off the upset (see play below), the Tide were dominated and were down 43-24 in the late going.

TCU also had to deal with a test, this one against in-state rival SMU.  At home, the Horned Frogs let the Mustangs pull within five with just over eight minutes to play in the fourth quarter.  While Gary Patterson’s team was able to pull away late, SMU did have the ball with a chance to take the lead and six minutes to play; however, they would turn it over on downs, and TCU survived.

As for the other major upset, #6 ranked USC was toppled by perennial foe Stanford at home; the Cardinal, after being left for dead after a stunning opening week loss to Northwestern, have crept back into the AP Top 25 at #21.  They won the game against USC by controlling the ball in the second half and limiting the potent Trojan offense to just 20:31 of possession for the game.

The other top 10 teams (Michigan State, Georgia, Notre Dame, Florida State, UCLA) all won, and #5 Baylor was off.  And even that being said, last Saturday certainly did not disappoint.

But it also left us with a serious conundrum: who should be #1?

If you like sticking with the status quo, then you’re probably going with Ohio State.  And if you’re going with Ohio State, then… I’m sorry. I would strongly disagree with you.

They just don’t look good.  They sleepwalked through their second straight home win Saturday (they turned in a similarly sleepy performance against Hawaii in a 31-0 win the week before) and it looks like they will be facing the same curse that has befallen every team (other than Alabama) this side of 1995 Nebraska; the curse of trying to become a repeat champion.

And, as Stewart Mandel of Fox Sports writes, it isn’t happening this year, either:

Alas, it appears we will go yet another season without seeing college football’s elusive unicorn – The Unbeatable Preseason No. 1 Team. Following in the footsteps of 2005USC, 2009 Florida, 2013 Alabama and 2014 Florida State, 2015 Ohio State appears to be yet another ostensibly loaded defending national champ that, it turns out, has issues just like everyone else.

Mind you, the Buckeyes’ are particularly puzzling. How does an offense with Cardale Jones, J.T. Barrett, Ezekiel Elliott,Braxton Miller, Michael Thomas and four veteran O-lineman score just 13 points against Northern Illinois? Like those aforementioned teams, Ohio State will likely remain a contender into December but hardly the overwhelming favorite it appeared a couple of weeks ago.

This should serve to us as a lesson of how difficult it is to repeat in sports.  And Ohio State won’t be doing it this year, so why make them #1 now?

As for Michigan State, they have a case, but not a strong one.  While they moved up to #2 in this week’s poll (leap frogging TCU for no particular reason), they haven’t looked overly impressive, either, save for a strong game against Oregon in East Lansing on September 12. Western Michigan and Air Force both played them well, and this may be something to remember as Sparty gets into its conference slate. But if they and the Buckeyes can both win out against fairly easy schedules, it could set up a Game of the Century in Columbus on November 21.  Stay tuned.

The aforementioned Horned Frogs have also looked somewhat uninspired, and, other than a cupcake game against Stephen F. Austin, have been pushed by Minnesota and SMU.  It should be duly noted that Minnesota, whom TCU beat on the road on the season’s opening night, has beaten Colorado State and Kent State in its last two games by a combined total of six points.  That being said, I would actually put them at #1, if only for this week.  They have most of the players back from last year’s squad and have come to play in both of their games.  Their defense is nowhere good enough to win or even compete for a national title right now, but they have a track record and a history of success with the players currently on the team. While their defense has been disappointing, their offense looks as if it is firing on all cylinders, and most importantly, they have passed the eye test so far in this young season.

And as for the other team I would put in my top 4 for this week? Baylor.  Yes, they haven’t looked great either, but, again, track record must be absolutely critical when ranking teams.  And after all, I picked Baylor to win the national title, so that has to bear some consideration, right?  Only kidding.

Yes, Ole Miss did look dominant against Alabama, but to be very honest with you, I thought Alabama was overrated in the first place. They should have never been as high as #2 and, by extension, Ole Miss shouldn’t be as high as tied for third in the latest AP poll.

My point is that it is far, far too soon to be passing out judgment on the college football season, because there is probably more carnage on the way.  We still have to remember that it’s early in the season, and even though Ohio State looks like a cross between 2014 Florida State and 2011 Auburn, it’s still a little to early to be overreacting to teams looking unimpressive.  But if we get another week like this one, well, I’ll have to write another one of these articles.

I don’t know for sure who number one should be.  But I did take a guess, at least.  I’m more than happy to put my name and face to putting TCU at #1 and picking Baylor as my national champion.

But I can’t pretend to have any idea what’s coming next week, or in that case, the rest of the season.

*P.S.: This is what my top 10 would look like if I had an AP ballot. I don’t, obviously, but this is what I would have done. Here it is:

  1. TCU
  2. Ohio State
  3. Michigan State
  4. Baylor
  5. Notre Dame
  6. Georgia
  7. Ole Miss
  8. UCLA
  9. LSU
  10. Florida State

Let me know what’s right and wrong in the comments section!

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Chris Coghlan’s Slide on Jung Ho Kang Was Legal, but Should It Be?

Yesterday afternoon, the Cubs and Pirates concluded their critical four-game series in Pittsburgh.  The Cubs would ultimately win the game 9-6 and the series 3-1, but the real story came in the first inning, before the Cubs even recorded an out.

The North Siders loaded up the bases against Pirates’ starter Charlie Morton.  They sent MVP candidate Anthony Rizzo to the plate and he hit a double play ball to second baseman Neil Walker.  Walker threw to shortstop Jung Ho Kang and Kang, like many middle infielders before him, was slid into by the Cubs’ Chris Coghlan.  Only, unlike said middle infielders, Kang wasn’t able to get up and shake off the dirt after the play.

Here is the video, in case you missed it: (WARNING: Video may be disturbing to some.)

Kang suffered a broken leg on the play and is out for the rest of this season and very well could miss the beginning of next season.  His loss affects the Pirates’ playoff chances directly, as he could play every position effectively and hit for average and decent power.  But this discussion can be put to the back burner for a while; let’s talk about the play.

And here’s the caveat that should come with it while it looks ridiculously dirty, it’s actually a perfectly “clean” play, according to the rule book.  Here is the definitive proof (or lack thereof), in MLB rule 7.09:

(f) If, in the judgment of the umpire, a batter-runner willfully and deliberately interferes with a batted ball or a fielder in the act of fielding a batted ball, with the obvious intent to break up a double play, the ball is dead; the umpire shall call the batter-runner out for interference and shall also call out the runner who had advanced closest to the home plate regardless where the double play might have been possible. In no event shall bases be run because of such interference.

But there is nothing there that addresses a runner sliding into a shortstop or second baseman to try to break up a double play.  This practice has been in place for decades, but it is pretty rare to see someone actually get hurt on the play.  Of course, just because players don’t usually sustain injury on a play like this one doesn’t mean that said play is not dangerous.

That applies here; the tactic that Coghlan used to get Kang off-balance is so commonly used that most fans don’t even react when it happens. This is something that ESPN’s Jesse Rogers addressed yesterday:

Neither the Pittsburgh Pirates nor Jung Ho Kang, through his agent, have indicated a belief Chicago Cubs outfielder Chris Coghlan’s slide into second base, which ended Kang’s season on Thursday afternoon, was dirty.

Anyone who believes it was dirty must also believe every takeout slide has the potential to be dirty. If the infielder isn’t going to jump or move out of the way, then a collision is inevitable.

That’s not to blame the victim here. The blame is on the situation. It came on a double play that developed later than normal on a ball hit by Anthony Rizzo in the first inning of the Cubs’ 9-6 win. Kang bravely stood his ground as second baseman Neil Walker flipped him the ball while Coghlan came at him with a hard-but-legal slide. It’s a slide you see several times in every game — a little off the base but within striking distance of it.

I can understand and even agree with this point of view; while the end result was horrible, slides like the one Coghlan performed are 1) legal and 2) effective.  While Coghlan’s slide didn’t break up the double play, there have been too many slides that have to count.  That being said, the rule may be in line for slight modification; the game can be made safer without completely removing the play from the sport.

Here is another example to demonstrate why I don’t think much of this “controversy”: many slides, as Rogers mentioned, wander slightly outside of the base.  Take, for instance, an aggressive slide into home, one where the runner himself does not actually slide over the base, but one part of his body does: his left hand.  The catcher isn’t in the way on the play, so no one really thinks anything of it.  But seriously, how could a person look at this slide and think it isn’t designed to avoid the tag?

This is completely beside the point, but Holliday was so out on that play that it wasn’t even funny.  Anyway, let’s get back to yesterday’s business.

The best comparison for the second base takeout slide is likely the since-outlawed practice of running over a catcher at home plate.  In 2014, Major League Baseball took preventative steps to curtail dangerous, concussion-inducing activity at home plate by implementing rules that prevented catchers from blocking the plate and runners from running outside the baseline.

However (and this is important), the changes weren’t as earth-shattering as they were made out to be.  This is what Fangraphs’ Craig Edwards wrote on the two subjects today:

It is important to note that MLB did not actually outlaw collisions at home plate. They addressed the principal causes of collisions, instructed teams on the same, and while the rule did cause some confusion in its first year, the rule appears to be by and large successful.

Unfortunately for our concern regarding the takeout slide, the same factors at home plate do not exist at a force at second base. Where the catcher can get in front of the plate once he has the ball, at second base, almost all takeout slides occur after the fielder has the ball. This makes the second option, arguably the more important and successful of the rules, untenable for takeout slides.

Of course, the rules were clarified last September in fear of the possibility of a Rule 7.13 World Series, one that gets decided by a home plate collision.  However, Edwards’ point is absolutely crucial; baseball didn’t actually ban home plate collisions, they just made the rules such that these plays were strongly discouraged and much more rare.

And that is what baseball should do in this case, as well. Commissioner Manfred can make a rule that states that a runner cannot go outside of the baseline to make contact with a fielder trying to complete a double play.  The play wouldn’t be removed from the game; rather, it would be made more difficult to pull off and less likely to occur.  If a fielder is on the base, then, and only then, can a runner take him out.  That seems fair enough to me.

To be perfectly clear, the slide and result were not Chris Coghlan’s fault.  He made the right play in that situation and, especially in a game of that magnitude with the Cubs hurtling toward October baseball, gave a complete effort on that play when he could have easily stopped running.

But he didn’t, and now Jung Ho Kang’s season is over.

An outcome that should be avoided at all costs in the future.

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You Left a Team No Option: The Seahawks Need Kam Chancellor in the Worst Way

You may have heard that Seahawks’ safety Kam Chancellor is holding out for a new contract.  Chancellor, one of the starting safeties on Seattle’s super bowl teams of the last two seasons, is making $5.65 million against the cap in 2015 and also has two more years left on his contract.  The hard-hitting stalwart of the Legion of Boom thinks he can get more than that, but his organization isn’t budging.

And while the Seahawks have been unwilling to pay Chancellor, they may soon be left with no other choice.

The Hawks, who led the NFL is total defense last season (with Chancellor) gave up 352 total yards to their opponent, the St. Louis Rams, on just 52 plays.  The L.O.B. gave up 276 of those yards to Rams’ quarterback Nick Foles; 37 of them came on a game tying touchdown pass from Foles to Lance Kendricks with 53 seconds to play.

To be completely fair, the Seahawks at least partially lost to St. Louis because of, well… themselves.  They tried to sneak an onside kick past Jeff Fisher’s squad at the commencement of overtime.  It was really meant to carry much further down the field, but kicker Steven Hauschska accidentally kicked it about the same distance as a typical onside kick would go; the Rams recovered and subsequently kicked a field goal.

After that, the Seahawks drove into Ram territory but were held to a fourth and one.  Needing a first down with one yard to get, Pete Carroll rightly decided to hand the ball to Marshawn Lynch, in a turn of events from the end of Super Bowl XLIX.  The result was… yeah, he didn’t make it.

And it’s true: the Seahawks didn’t lose on Sunday just because of Chancellor’s absence.  Bleacher Report’s Mike Tanier wrote to this point today:

Russell Wilson endured six sacks. Lynch rushed for 73 yards but needed to break about 63 tackles to do it. When you watch Lynch get stuffed in overtime, watch right tackle Garry Gilliam get shoved into the backfield by Michael Brockers.

Gilliam is one of the Seahawks’ pet projects. Instead of drafting a tackle in a fairly deep draft for offensive linemen, they tinkered with Gilliam, an undrafted 2014 rookie who started his college career at tight end. They talked themselves into naming Gilliam the starter when Justin Britt moved inside to guard. The Seahawks hadn’t bothered drafting a guard until the fourth round, either.

Even with the offensive line blocking like ushers at a free concert and the secondary operating at 75 percent capacity, the Seahawks still had a chance to avoid an upset at the hands of the Rams thanks to Nick Foles getting surprised by a shotgun snap, Isaiah Pead somehow getting meaningful carries that led to meaningful fumbles and Cary Williams making a spectacular defensive play and then pulling a Cary Williams by taking the rest of the afternoon off.

The Rams won the overtime toss and chose to receive, making the Seahawks’ path to victory clear: Pin the Rams at or inside their own 20, unleash the Legion of Boom, get good field position and either parlay that into a win.

Instead, the Seahawks onside-kicked, giving the Rams great field position for their cannon-legged field-goal kicker and a chance to win the game with their defense, the one the Seahawks couldn’t block at all.

Self-outsmartment.

All of this is true; it isn’t just because of Kam.  (Interesting side note: Gilliam’s claim to fame is catching a touchdown pass on the fake field goal in last year’s NFC Championship game.)  But the Seahawks absolutely need him, and this is why: their defense is a shell of itself without him.

Rookie Dion Bailey filled in at Chancellor’s position on Sunday, and he failed miserably, particularly on the most important play of the game:

On the play, Bailey fell down, leaving Kendricks open and giving the Los Angeles Rams new life.  While it is impossible to say for sure, it isn’t likely that something like this would happen to Chancellor, even considering the knee problems he suffered at the end of last season.

And there’s something else that Chancellor brings: physicality. Intimidation.  Demorilization.  A physical offense and a hard-hitting defense have been the hallmarks of this golden age in the Pacific Northwest, and Chancellor brings to the offense what Lynch brings to the offense: attitude, determination, and the will to destroy the opponent and rally the troops.  The Seahawks have missed both with him gone.

Consider this hit he made on Julian Edelman in the Super Bowl:

While Edelman holds on for the catch, his bell is rung and suspicions are aroused that he played the rest of the game with a concussion. The play turned the fortunes of the Patriots, but really only because Edelman survived the hit from the much bigger and scarier Chancellor.

The players are naturally taking notice of Chancellor’s absence, and while they aren’t saying boo in the press about it, one has shown his support.  That one is none other than the Kam Chancellor of the Seahawks’ offense: Marshawn Lynch.  He wore Chancellor’s jersey at practice for one day last week, but changed back into his usual jersey the next day; after all, he is really just there so he won’t get fined.

So the players (at least Lynch, anyway) are starting to understand; the Seahawks really need Kam Chancellor.  While it’s extremely difficult to blame him for, you know, trying to get more money (who has ever done that before?), it’s also understandable to feel empathy for the plight of the Seahawks here; one of their employees is basically refusing to come to work because of his salary (or lack thereof).

But no matter whose fault it is, the 12th man will assuredly be sleepless is Seattle, and here’s why:

Kam Chancellor has left the Seahawks no other option.  They have to bring him back.

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The Steelers Did Not Lose to the Patriots Because of Headsets

The Patriots and Steelers played Thursday night in the NFL’s first game back from its disastrous offseason.  The game was quite a spectacle; even before it started, the Patriots got their rings, quarterback Tom Brady took a victory lap to the tune of Nas’ “Hate Me Now” and rapper T-Pain performed his hit “All I Do is Win”; there was even a performance from the Springfield Symphony Orchestra. If all that wasn’t surreal enough, the actual game itself began, and the Steelers almost immediately had some problems with their headsets.

This is what happened, as told by Jeremy Fowler of ESPN.com:

It wouldn’t be a New England Patriots game without some drama involving off-the-field strategy.

Pittsburgh Steelers coaches were upset that their coach-to-coach headsets picked up the Patriots’ radio broadcast for the majority of the first half of Thursday night’s game, which New England went on to win 28-21.

When pressed after the game, an unhappy Mike Tomlin said headset issues have occurred repeatedly in New England.

“That’s always the case. Yes. I said what I said,” Tomlin said.

Blake Jones, NFL director of football operations, went down to the field to help with the headsets. The league described the reception problem as “intermittent.”

When asked if he got a satisfactory resolution, Tomlin said: “Eventually.” Tomlin is a member of the league’s competition committee.

Because it was not a complete system failure, New England’s coaches were not required to shut down their headsets during the repairs. However, the Patriots said they experienced issues as well.

“We had a lot of problems,” Bill Belichick said. “We had to switch headphones a couple of times. The communication system wasn’t very good. We deal with that, it seems, weekly.

Unfortunately, this just so happened to occur during a New England Patriots game.  And as is often the case with the Patriots, some, and in particular Steeler fans, are jumping to the conclusion that the headsets are the reason why they won, and that simply isn’t the case.

It wasn’t the headsets, it just wasn’t.  While they probably didn’t help their cause, the Steelers had plenty of opportunities to get on the scoreboard while the technical difficulties were occuring.  For example, Pittsburgh’s first drive took all of five plays to get 56 yards down field to the Pats’ 24; 33 of these yards came by way of fill-in running back DeAngelo Williams’ ground exploits.  Then, offensive coordinator Todd Haley dialed up this play, which was, um, something:

The drive stalled after that play and a 10-yard holding penalty subsequently after.  Kicker Josh Scobee came onto the field and proceeded to shank a 44-yard field goal attempt well wide to the right.

After a second-quarter New England touchdown, Big Ben and the Steeler offense got back to work, and Roethlisberger connected with Darrius Heyward-Bey on a 43-yard bomb to the Patriot 35.  After a Williams 6-yard run, the drive came to a halt, bringing Scobee back into the game for a 46-yard try.  Scobee would miss to the right again, and the Patriots would be well on their way after a score on their next drive.

New England would go up 21-3 at the beginning of the second half, and while the Steelers would mount a mini-comeback in the fourth quarter, it wouldn’t be nearly enough.  The Patriots would win 28-21, and that score was in part because of an Antonio Brown touchdown catch with two seconds to play.

So why did the Steelers lose this game, anyway?  If you listen to them, they might talk at length about the headset issues and how they were negatively affected by them.  And they may also complain about something else, as reported by USA Today’s Tom Pelissero:

Trouble with headsets wasn’t all that had the Pittsburgh Steelers upset during Thursday night’s loss to the New England Patriots.

Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger vigorously protested after left tackle Kelvin Beachum was called for a false start on third-and-goal from the Patriots’ 1-yard line – an infraction triggered by the New England line sliding during Roethlisberger’s snap count.

“I thought that there was a rule against that,” Roethlisberger told reporters. “Maybe there’s not. Maybe it’s just an unwritten rule. … We saw it on film, that the Patriots do that. They shift and slide and do stuff on the goal line, knowing that it’s an itchy trigger finger-type down there.”

Left guard Ramon Foster, who also moved on the play, confirmed the Steelers had seen it on film and players were told it’s legal, provided the Patriots don’t cross the line of scrimmage.

“They time it up in the cadence,” Foster told USA TODAY Sports, smiling and shaking his head. “Yeah, that’s one of the things they do. Welcome to Foxborough.”

There is a rule against “attempting to disconcert Team A at snap by words or signals,” but a routine line slide wouldn’t seem to expressly violate that. An NFL spokesman did not immediately respond to a request seeking clarification early Friday morning.

Okay, let’s be perfectly clear here.  The Patriots’ pre-play activity in the trenches is 100% legal.  Sliding defenders from side to side to affect the cadence of the offense is a legal maneuver because the Patriots did not jump offsides.  It’s even a move that I used to attempt to pull in Madden; it never worked for me, but it worked beautifully for Belichick’s team on Thursday.

There are myriad reasons why the Steelers lost to the Patriots Thursday.  It certainly could not have helped them that they were without three of their best players (Le’Veon Bell, Martavis Bryant, Maurkice Pouncey) due to injury and, in the cases of Bell and Bryant, suspension.  In part because of this, as well as the motivation the Patriots got from the DeflateGate ruling, Brady’s Bunch was simply the better team Thursday.

A malfunctioning headset or two can’t change that fact.