With apologies to Bill Simmons: I have a rule in life. Anytime the Florida Gators have their first 2 NBA All-Stars in history, and the game is taking place less than 45 miles from my house, in the most ridiculous sports venue conceived by man, I'm going to attend, and bring you the details.
This happened. Sunday night, Feb. 14, while the rest of you pansies were celebrating Valentine's Day, I was at the Boss Hog Bowl (as Randy Galloway calls it) celebrating the NBA's opulence, as it generally heads toward losing $400 million. That's an interesting juxtaposition with the tab for the hosting venue (open only since May 2009) at $1.15 billion.
David Lee and Al Horford became the first Florida Gators to ever appear in an NBA All-Star Game. I was there.
I'll also run down the experience of going to a basketball game at Jerry Jones' shrine to himself, in case you want to head back for the 2011 Super Bowl or for the Florida Gators' 2014 Final Four appearance in the same building.
Happy Super Bowl week everyone! Take a break from being upset over failed New Years resolutions and holiday weight gain and be happy; after all, tis the season for funny multi-million dollar commercials, the Super Bowl shuffle and nip-slips (Googling any of those should put a smile on your face).
This is the one time of year everyone is a football fan, die-hard college football devotees try their hand at NFL football betting, and the effeminate guy in the cube across from me actually knows the names of the teams (he’s going for the Colts; Black and Gold was so last year).
The National Football League. It’s hard not to be a fan.
(Don’t forget to take 3 drinks for every word of the spelled out acronym that announcers say to fill space or sound dramatic.)
In one of the best playoff years for storylines in a long time, the NFL divisional round is in the books. The two top-seeded teams from the NFC are meeting next week in the Louisiana Superdome while the top-seeded AFC squad will take on “The Little Team That Could” at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis.
The NFL teams still in contention have great characters. I’m starting to see why some people actually enjoy the fake character storylines in “pro” wrestling. But these NFL guys aren’t faking. This is real stuff. No producers, no writers, no editing and as we’ll see: no apologies.
Let’s take a look at this week’s action through the storylines….
The other day, some of us at gatorsfirst.com got to talking about the NFL- and I mentioned how many current NFL starting QBs are from the SEC.
Now, I abhor using NFL performance to argue the greatness of individual college teams and/or players. For instance, I take ’95 Nebraska as the greatest college team of all time, while many take ’01 Miami based on the NFL talent on the roster. So I’m not trying to make the conference argument for the SEC based on this data. In fact, if you think I have to make the argument for the SEC at all, I guffaw in your direction. The SEC is #1. That’s a separate debate, that's not really debatable.
Let’s get back to looking at the curious case of the NFL QB.
The 2009 NFL draft is in the books. It's not always about accuracy in Mock Drafts, but after crunching the numbers of everyone's last revision, Kiper had a match percentage of 29.7%, McShay had 21.9% and I was 15.6%. I've coded correct picks below with M, T, or K (M= Mel Kiper, T=Todd McShay, K=Krutch, yours truly). Here's a recap with analysis of each team's new talent.
OK, so things have changed sinceMock Draft No. 1. I am not without my faults. So Aaron Curry and B.J. Raji will be taken a LOT higher than previously speculated.
Seeing workout results and the relative interest teams are showing in certain players has seriously shaken up my Draft Board, and Jay Cutler throws a wrench in everything.
This is the sixth in a series of six Major League Baseball divisional previews. Check them all out right here. Today’s featured division, the AL West, has the fewest number of teams of any division in baseball…
Our friend Adam is a big Yankees fan and he has a well thought out preview for us. James already wrote an AL East preview here, so compare the two viewpoints. Adam also has his own Gators website in development, and for the time being, you can follow his thoughts here: http://twitter.com/onlygators...
The 2009 Major League Baseball season is upon us and teams are ready to embark on their 162 game journey towards the playoffs, and eventually the World Series. This is the fifth in a series of six divisional previews. Our next division is was the most fickle division last year, the NL West...
This is the fourth in a series of six Major League Baseball divisional previews. Check them all out right here. Today’s featured division, the AL Central, had the most parity of any division in baseball last year...
The 2009 Major League Baseball season is upon us and teams are ready to embark on their 162 game journey towards the playoffs, and eventually the World Series. This is the third in a series of six divisional previews. Our next division has the most team in one division, the NL Central.
This is the second in a series of six Major League Baseball divisional previews. Check them all out right here. Today’s featured division is the toughest in sports. While Boston and New York have consistently fought for division supremacy, the upstart Rays went on to win the division and the American League before running out of gas in the World Series.
The 2009 Major League Baseball season is upon us and teams are ready to embark on their 162 game journey towards the playoffs, and eventually the World Series. This is the first in a series of six divisional previews. Our first division is where the defending World Series champion resides, the NL East.
We at gatorsfirst.com are Gators, first. The University of Florida, and our love for it (Gator sports included) brought us together. After all, our #1 goal is to provide your boss a reason to fire you, and entertain you all through your work day. That’s why we occasionally touch on the MLB, NFL, NBA, music, and life in general.
It just so happens our two biggest contributors are also huge Major League Baseball fans. 5 years ago (before Boston won its first World Series in 86 years) you could have debated the ethics behind my dad inducting me to Red Sox Nation, before there were major league teams in Florida. Fellow contributor Chris has been a diehard Marlins fan since day one. We’re also huge fantasy baseball nerds. Feel free to follow along with the gatorsfirst.com fantasy league here. We’re trying to get to 12 teams, and would not be opposed to having one or two reader-managed teams to fill out the league, so let us know in the comments below why you should be included and I’ll get back to you.
Enough administrative BS, let’s get to some hardcore seamhead predictions…
With signing day wrapped up, and the Gator basketball team on a bye this weekend, I’d like to take a step back to do something I don’t normally do: pimp a website not named gatorsfirst.com.
Eventchaser.com is an awesome concept. They provide discounted tickets to the bloggers on their website. So how does it all work?
Having been a Bucs fan for 14 years now, it’s been rare to see a coaching change. It wouldn’t be right to be pessimistic about it though. In 1996, they hired a first time head coach by the name of Dungy and they were rewarded a year later with their first winning season since 1982. In 2002, they traded 4 high draft picks and $8 million for Jon Gruden and immediately got a return on their investment with a Super Bowl win. Now in 2009, the Buccaneers have taken a new risk: Raheem Morris. Next year could be surprisingly good if history has any indication.
As a born and raised diehard Miami Dolphins fan, I have had my fair share of disappointments. Whether it be the painful playoff losses of the early 1990’s (particularly against Buffalo!), or not making the playoffs since 2001, nothing was as painful as watching the 2007 addition of the team. The ineptitude was wide spread. We were trotting out Cleo Lemon & John Beck at QB for god’s sake! The only other thing that we led the league in, besides losses of course, was the # of Cams. (Cameron Worrell, Greg Camarillo, and head coach Cameron Cameron). However, for all of last year’s pain, this year has been a blessing. Here are my thoughts on a wonderful turnaround...
Let me start off by saying I think Boston is becoming the dominant team year-in and year-out in MLB. But several factors caught up to them this year, and if you read Bill Simmons even semi-regularly you'll know this team doesn't seem to have the heart and hunger of teams from prior years... so I'm not expecting an ALCS comeback of 04, or even 07, proportions. These are in no particular order.
Moneyball is easily the most misunderstood sports book I can think of. It's very title has become like a catch phrase, and many people who talk about it have probably never even flipped through a copy (don't bother looking for pictures, there aren't many).
If you'd like to participate in the GatorsFirst NFL pick'em, I made it a public group... just sign up for ESPN Pigskin pick'em, choose the 'use spread' option (picks are against the spread!) and then pick 'join group' and find GatorsFirst.com
The 49ers were everyone's 'sleeper pick' before the season, which may just have been a clue to avoid any high preseason hopes for them. But I had high hopes for them anyways, if only because Alex Smith, I thought, would be a prehistoric Tim Tebow, and I happened to like what Frank Gore did for my fantasy team last year. So when the Patriots got the 49ers 1st round pick for this season (via draft day trade), no one really thought it'd be a great pick, it was just the Patriots stockpiling picks again. Turns out, maybe Belichick and company are even smarter than we think (or terribly, terribly lucky) as right now the pick looks to be #2 overall...
I thought I was picking on the Browns with their QB change in week 2, putting in a 6'6" guy from Oregon State (not the Chad Johnson,Steven Jackson, #4 in the country years, the losing to Pitt in the Sun Bowl years). I picked up Cincinnati's Defense for a one-week play (I am morally opposed to drafting D/ST, K, TE except in the last 3-4 rounds- if you ask why, I ask how the Bears and Ravens are treating you, relative to Big Ben, who I drafted later). Anyways, the point is I got -8 from the Bengals, who were quickly in a shootout game...
I'm stunned that I'm sitting here knowing that the Pats are still undefeated. I watched the entire game last night. They were physically manhandled and handily beaten by the Ravens for most of that game...
