Rocky Mountain High

Are you prepared to live in a world where the Colorado Rockies are the National League Champions?

I know I am.

I don’t care that they beat the Padres three weeks ago in that one game playoff. I don’t care that no one watched the NLCS this year. I don’t even care that– according to the K’ster, their entire team is really into Christianity and will probably turn their team logo into the Born-Again Christian Fish next year. The Rockies are on an incredible run. They’ve won 21 out of their last 22 games. They’ve won 10 in a row. They’ve become the first team to sweep through the NLDS and NLCS. And gosh darn it, they’re a pretty entertaining team to watch.

The Colorado Rockies are a genuine feel-good sports story. If this team were in New York or Boston they would have been hyped to death by now. ESPN would have done like three Outside the Lines on them, they would have been the lead story on every SportsCenter, their games would probably have been simulcast on ESPN Classic, and Skip Bayless’ head would have exploded while comparing this team to the 1995 Yankees.

We would have hated them.

Instead I bet half the baseball fans out there couldn’t pick Matt Holliday out of a police lineup right now. And since ESPN apparently thinks that the Yankees managerial position — a story that will have little bearing on anything until April 2008 (another seven freaking months from now) is more newsworthy, the Rockies haven’t gotten any of the overboard EPSN-hype yet. And you know what? That’s one of the reasons this team is so likeable.

My friend Matt and I were talking about the Rockies on Sunday and we couldn’t believe that this was the same team that seemed like they were 8-10 games behind the Padres the entire season. I mean, this team really came from nowhere to go on this remarkable run. Look at their record at the end of each month of the season.

April: 11-6; 5.5 games back, last place
May: 25-29; 6.5 games back, last place
June: 39-43; 8 games back, fourth place
July: 53-55; 3.5 games back, fourth place
August 68-65; 6 games back, fourth place

This team didn’t have a month where they finished with a record over .500 until August. How a team like that can go on a run like this is unheard of. And that what makes this team fun to cheer for. They’ve lost one game since September 16th. They pitch well, they hit in the clutch, they play spotless defense and by golly there just plain good.

Maybe it’s my general disdain for the Padres front office that’s making me like the Rockies so much. Maybe it’s the fact that I’m going to Denver in about a month. Or maybe it’s the fact that the only other thing I have going for me in sports right now is rooting for a 3-3 Charger team that is hanging on by hairs of its ass.

All I know is that next week the Rockies are going to play either the Red Sox or Indians in the World Series and they’ll most likely be the underdogs. If they somehow pull it off, maybe, just maybe, they’ll get more hype than a team that hasn’t won a World Series in seven years…

Here are 10 more thoughts on a solid sports weekend:

1. The Indians are the second best story to emerge this postseason. This team can flat-out hit. I watched them a lot this postseason and it seems like every time they’ve fallen behind they come back the next inning and score some runs. An Indians-Rockies series would be pretty sweet. Both those teams are just playing out of their minds right now.

2. What the hell happened to Manny Ramirez? He had a chance to drive in the go-ahead runs on Saturday night and he hit into a double play and again last night he came up in a big spot and AGAIN he hit into a double play. I’m going out on a limb a little here but if he keeps this up, I’m predicting this is the offseason the Red Sox finally trade Man-Ram.

(What about to San Francisco? That would be hilarious.)

3. Even though I’m not as big a baseball fan as I used to be, I watched that entire 6-hour marathon Saturday night. My thoughts? That was a looooooonnnnnng freaking game. And Eric Gagne sucks. The only good thing that came out of that game was the fact that I ate some carne asada chips earlier in the game (between the 4th and 5th innings) and got hungry enough to eat a California Burrito the size of Ryan Garko between the 9th and 11th innings. Good times!

4. I may be ready for life with the Colorado Rockies as the NL champs but I’m not ready for a world where the number top ranked teams in college football are Southern Florida and Boston College. I was watching the LSU game until they were up by two touchdowns in the third quarter and decided to play Madden until the Sox-Indians game and it turns out somehow Kentucky came back to beat them. And later that night Cal had a chance to claim the number one spot but they lost to Mike Riley’s Oregon State.

Mediocrity is killing this college football season. Once the regular season ends in early December is anyone going to wait around for six weeks to watch Boston College play South Florida? If it’s going to continue to be like this they definitely need a playoff system.

5. The Patriots are ridiculously good. Even if they lose to the Colts in a couple of weeks they could very easily be 15-1 with home field advantage throughout the playoffs. The ironic thing is, the way it’s breaking it looks like the Chargers — with their defense and running game in a snowstorm that would limit the Patriots passing game, would have the best shot to come into Foxboro in January and beat New England. It’d take a heck of an effort though. The Patriots look unstoppable right now.

6. I just want to say that this past weekend was the second straight weekend that we brought back “shots for every Charger touchdown” and this was the second straight week that the Chargers looked really good. Maybe we’re on to something. After weeks of looming in mediocrity, LT rushed for 198 yards and is leading the AFC in rushing again. I’ll hold out to see how they do the next few weeks (especially during the Colts game) before I declare that the Chargers are back, but at least they look good again.

After the bye they have the Texans and then go to Minnesota — two winnable games that they can’t screw up. And then they have a showdown with the Colts. After that they go to J’ville, host the Ravens and go to KC and then Tennessee. They could go 7-0 over this stretch or 2-5 and I wouldn’t be surprised either way. I officially don’t know what to expect from these guys.

7. I’m thinking way ahead here, but ideally the Colts lose to the Jags next Monday, beat the Patriots in about 19 days, lose to the Chargers and then have another hiccup somewhere along the way. That would allow the Chargers to sneak into the number two slot setting up a potential SD-Indy rematch in January followed by another shot at the Patriots in Foxboro.

I don’t want to get ahead of myself but I’m just saying there’s a possibility of an Ali-Foreman-Frazier scenario developing here where the Chargers can beat the Colts but not the Patriots, the Patriots can beat the Chargers and not the Colts, and the Colts can beat the Patriots but not the Chargers and it just depends on who plays who.

8. Three weeks ago I went to get a Charger jersey– you know, just to mix things up a little since they were lousy and all. I wanted a jersey with the number stitched on so my choices were limited to LT, Phil Rivers, and Shawne Merriman. Since I already had an LT jersey and my friend Matt regularly wears his LT jersey over for Charger games I couldn’t go with Tomlinson. My next thought was to go with Rivers but you know what? I couldn’t do it. I mean isn’t that the ultimate litmus test for how you feel about a player? If this was last year I would have been confident enough in Rivers to throw down on his jersey without flinching. Instead I sat in the Chargers store and tried on both jerseys multiple times before finally going with the Merriman jersey. My reasoning was, there is no chance Merriman wasn’t going to be on the Chargers five years from now. I could have said the same about Rivers last year, but this year I’m not so sure. He looks shaky back there like he had six cups of coffee and three Red Bulls before the game or something. I don’t know if the new offensive coordinator or if he’s regressing or if he’s trying to do too much or what but he’s no where near the same quarterback he was last year.

Look at that interception he threw to Thomas Howard on Sunday. If you watch the replay you can see that he had an opportunity to check down to LT — which would have been fine since it was first or second down and they had a two touchdown lead. Instead he passes up LT, starts looking downfield, feels some pressure than lobs the ball in the middle of nowhere and gets it picked off. The excuses / reasons for his play are endless– new coaches, new receivers, new coordinators. But the point is, my confidence in him isn’t as high because he’s killing the Chargers with some of the plays he’s making. If he pulls this same crap against the Texans or in Minnesota they’re going to lose. They definitely can’t beat the Colts and would probably lose in J’ville, KC and Tennessee as well. So if you’re looking for a key to the rest of the Charger season it’s the play of Phil Rivers. Plain and simple.

9. Holy crap! Just found out that the Chargers just traded for Dolphin receiver Chris Chambers. This is a huge trade. Suddenly they have a receiving corps of Gates, Chambers, and Vincent Jackson which is a big upgrade over Gates, Jackson and the Buster Davis / Malcolm Floyd / Kasim Osgood pu-pu platter. If you look at it, everyone’s job will be easier now. Instead of drawing the main coverage (like he did in Miami) defenses will key on Gates first which should free up Chambers. And now, instead of going against the other team’s number one corner, Jackson gets their number two corner. And of course Chambers — a legitimate deep threat will take a tremendous amount of pressure off of Gates. What a HUGE trade! I’m giddy. Please excuse me while I spend the next five minutes high-fiving myself.

(OK, I’m back)

10. You want a prediction for tonight? I’m going with the Indians with the Red Sox pulling one out behind Beckett on Wednesday, and the Tribe beating Schilling or Dice K on Friday or Saturday. I’m genuinely excited for an Indians-Rockies World Series. New York-Boston is played out and their fans (especially Boston fans) are somewhat annoying and I wouldn’t nearly be as excited to watch the Sox win another World Series.

Reconciling the Loss

You know the saying that goes, “You don’t know that you have a good girlfriend until you’ve been with a bad one?” Well after watching Norv Turner’s coaching performance while the Chargers were getting shellacked by the Patriots yesterday, everyone in my group of friends felt like we just traded Kelly Kapowski for Glenn Close’s character in Fatal Attraction. I was really excited about this game and Norv Turner came by and boiled a proverbial rabbit in my kitchen. The Chargers looked unprepared, were outsmarted, and played like a team that was poorly coached. I’m not a Marty Schottenheimer fan by any means, but in their losses last year, they didn’t get blown out like they did yesterday. How demoralizing.

I’ve heard people say that the Chargers just ran into a buzz saw in the form of a Patriot team motivated by people questioning the credibility of their three Super Bowls. But while there may be some truth to this, the Chargers shouldn’t have gotten blown out the way they did. I saw a team that failed to adjust when the Patriots started the game off with the spread formation. I saw corners playing back when they should have been pressing. I saw no attempts at disguising their coverages or anything other than vanilla blitz packages. I mean what happened to all of those corner and safety blitzes I kept reading about in the preseason? Did someone forget to tell Ted Cotrell that the season started two weeks ago?

On offense Turner showed that he had the balls of a field mouse with some of his play calls. Let me tell you a couple of three things: They should have gone for it on 4th and 1 in the second quarter when they had the ball on their own 39-yard line. When you’re down 17-0 and have Lorenzo Neal — who was like 20-for-20 in those situations last year, you gotta go for it. I don’t care where the ball was. And if they wanted to play it safe, they should have given Neal the ball the play before when it was 3rd and 1. On the next drive, it was 3rd and 1 again and they still didn’t give it to Neal! Instead they call a pass play that gets picked off and returned for a touchdown which made it 24-0 and marked the beginning of the end for the Chargers. Look, every game has a moment or two where the head coach decides to either “whip it out” or “keep it in their pants”– let’s just call this the “Whip it Out Moment”. Turner had two chances to whip it out on the road against the best team in the League and both times he kept it in his pants.

The Chargers had a couple of other chances to make it a more competitive game but didn’t. They opened the second half with a touchdown but let the Patriots come right back and score to make it 31-7. And when the Chargers brought it to 31-14 and then recovered the ensuing kickoff at the Patriot 31 a touchdown would have made it a 10-point game. Instead Turner calls two pass plays that both resulted in sacks, they call some halfhearted passing play on 3rd down, punt, and that was that.

So where does this leave the Chargers?

For one thing, they need to get better on offense. The Chargers offense doesn’t exactly look like its being run by an offensive genius. They haven’t scored in the first half yet this year, the line is getting pushed around, and their receivers haven’t done squat. But the biggest problem right now is that Phil Rivers is absolutely killing us. He turned the ball over three times yesterday and the pick he threw to Adalius Thomas that got ran back was brutal. I don’t know what happened to him, but Rivers doesn’t look comfortable in the pocket and is having a really hard time dealing with the blitz up the middle. Come to think of it, this offense doesn’t really have an identity right now. Are we a power running team? Are we a short yardage passing team? Are we a play-action team? Are we going to at least try to throw the ball downfield? Hopefully we’ll figure this out in the next few weeks. They go to Green Bay and play a good defensive team this weekend and if they can handle the Packers they have the Chiefs at home and they’re looking at a 3-1 record in the first quarter of the season. During the second quarter of the season they play at Denver, Oakland, Houston, and at Minnesota so they should be 7-1 or at the very least 6-2 at the midway point which isn’t bad. After that, they have their next gut-check game against the Colts on November 11th so they basically have seven weeks get their crap everything squared away.

And that’s why I’m not worried. Unlike the guy who delivers mail at my office who earlier today bet me a case of beer the Chargers wouldn’t make the playoffs (true story), I’m not going to give up on the season because of one lousy game. I’m I pissed that we lost? Hell yes, I am. But if you look at the big picture it’s Week 3 and we’re 1-1 against two of the top five teams in the League even though we’re going through a coaching change, we haven’t scored an offensive touchdown in the first half, and our running back is averaging less than two yards a carry.

I got emails and comments this morning slamming me for picking the Chargers to win this game 30-14. Do I feel like a moron for thinking the Chargers would blow out the Patriots? Of course I do. In retrospect I was a little too confident in thinking that the transition between Schottenheimer and Turner would be smooth. But you know what? My expectations for this team still haven’t changed. This season isn’t about beating the Patriots in Week 2. This season is about winning a championship. And while they got embarrassed last night there’s still a whole lot of season left to go. Maybe we get another shot at those guys in January. And maybe, by then Norv Turner will have grown some balls and we can stop comparing Marty Schottenheimer to Kelly Kapowski.

“Saw Things So Much Clearer…

Once you… were in my… REARVIEW MIRROR.”

–Pearl Jam

I think that just about sums up my Week 1 performance that saw me go a putrid 6-10 against the spread. Ouch! The good news is that I still won some scratch on a Charger-Colts parlay. Woot! Remember kids: It’s not about picking the right teams, it’s about betting on the right teams.

Let’s just hope they put that quote on my bust when I’m inducted into the Sam Rothstein Bettors Hall of Fame.

Here are my Week 2 picks (team listed first is the team that I picked):

LAY THESE ON THE WAY TO YOUR BETTORS ANNONYMUS MEETING:

Green Bay +1.5 at New York
Eli Manning has a bum shoulder, their defense gave up 45 points and Brandon Jacobs is on pace to become the fastest player ever to gain “Guy I Regret Drafting on my Fantasy Team” status joining Randy Moss, Felix Hernandez, 2006 Manny Ramirez, and Rich Harden. I think it’s safe to say the 2007 season hasn’t started off so well for the G-Men. I’m just looking forward to around Week 8 when the Giants are 1-7 and Peter King is interviewing a Tiki Barber who has six coats of make-up on and a grin so big you’d think he just ate a 42-ounce piece of turd.

Minnesota +3 at Detroit
I don’t know what games I’m getting on Sunday but I would like to make a special request to FOX: If you guys could find it in your heart not to saddle San Diego County with the Minnesota-Detroit game this weekend I would really appreciate it. I don’t know if there’s a game that would make everyone in my collective group say, “Screw it, let’s just play Madden until 1” but this one would really tempt us. Thanks!

In case you’re wondering, I went with the Vikings because I think the Vikings will be able to run the rock and Detroit won’t be able to score as easily as they did against Oakland last week.

Baltimore -7.5 vs. NY Jets
Both quarterbacks are hurt and I’m thinking Kyle Boller would fare better against the Jets defense than Kellen Clemens would against the Ravens defense.

ALMOST TOO CLOSE TO CALL:

Philly -7 at Washington
I went with Philly only because it’s a must-win game for the Eagles this week. They can’t lose their home opener and go 0-2 to start the season can they? Even though McNabb looked horrible last week, they would have won that game if it weren’t for those two muffed punts.

On the Redskins side, everyone says they looked good last week but they only beat the Dolphins by three points! It’s hard to take points on a road team when you don’t think they can win straight up.

San Francisco +3.5 at St. Louis
If I could take a mulligan on one of my preseason picks it would be the Rams winning the NFC West. “Piss Poor”, “Unprepared”, and “Sloppy” are three adjectives I would use to describe their performance last week against the Panthers. And now they’ve lost Orlando Pace for the season. Also, a couple of more bad games from Steven Jackson and I’ll be ready to introduce the “Never Trust a Black Football Player with Long Hair” corollary. I mean we already have Ricky Williams, Al Harris, and Cedric Benson. I just need a couple more instances before we can confirm this. I nominate Jackson and Lawrence Maroney to each fumble three times this week and Benson to miss the next 4-6 weeks with bruised ribs.

UNDERDOG SPECIALS:

San Diego +3.5 at New England
This is going to be the biggest game of the regular season. You wanna know why I think the Chargers will win? Let me break it down for you:

I don’t care about the spying. I don’t care about last year’s game. To be honest with you, I don’t care about what LT has to say about Belichick or what Rivers has to say about Hobbs or any of that crap. The Chargers are just going to line up on Sunday night and beat the living crap out of the Patriots. We’re going to stop the run with our front seven. We’re going to knock Brady around. We’re going to cover Moss with Jammer and a safety on top and the first time a ball is thrown his way, Moss is going to get smacked so hard he’ll be wishing he was back in Oakland smoking indo and running over meter maids. We’re going to use Cromartie on Stallworth and Florence on Welker and the Patriots “major acquisitions” are going to give their fans a nice big shit burger to eat. On offense, our line is going to maul their line. Do you hear me? MAUL. And since they’ll be loading up the box against LT, mark my words, Vincent Jackson and Malcolm Floyd will have a field day against Asante Samuel whoever else they have on the other side.

To paraphrase Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men: “We’re going rip your head off and shit down your fucking throat. You fucked with the wrong team.”

Trust me Charger fans, it will be a joyous beat down that will leave us looking forward to the next beat down we give those over-hyped, east coast, scarf and glove wearing sissies in January.

Chargers 34 Patriots 14.

Tennessee +7.5 vs. Indy
I was very impressed with the Tennessee win over the Jags last week and while the Colts looked good too, I’m not 100-percent sold on Indy’s defense just yet. Now if they go on the road and cover against a Titan team that always plays them tough then I may change my mind. But as of now I see a Titan upset or Indy squeaking out a 25-24 win or something of that nature.

Houston +6.5 over Carolina
The current leader for the award for “The Over-Hyped Storyline that everyone’s laughing about by Week 5” goes to “Jake Delhomme is looking over his shoulders now because of David Carr.” Are we talking about the same David Carr who has a 75.5 career passer rating or is there another David Carr out there that I don’t know about?

Another fun story that’s been circulating is the “Mario Williams has more touchdowns than Reggie Bush” take. I think it’s safe to say that at the end of the day, Reggie Bush will have more touchdowns than Mario Williams this year. In fact when it’s all said and done I’m guarantee you that Reggie Bush will have more touchdowns this season than Mario Williams will have in his entire career. I’m even willing to go as far as to say that Reggie Bush will have more touchdowns this year and in his career than Mario Williams will have sacks this year or throughout his entire career.

I like Mario Williams and all, and he seems like a nice guy but he’s not even in the same stratosphere as Reggie Bush.

Hopefully somewhere in Houston, someone is reading this while repeatedly ramming his head against the wall.

SCOT WRIGHT SPECIALS (Seemingly easy picks that could end up screwing your parlay):

New Orleans -3.5 at Tampa Bay
I’m not ready to give up on my sleeper team just yet and to be honest with you, I was this close to picking the Bucs to cover this one. First of all, the Bucs were right in that game against the Seahawks last week until Jeff Garcia got hurt and secondly the Saints offense didn’t exactly look like world beaters against an undersized Colts defense. I picked the Saints but I think that this game will tell us a lot about both teams.

Seattle -2.5 at Arizona
Matt Leinhart looked like he’d rather be doing body shots off of Tara Reid in some club in LA rather than playing in the game against the Niners last Monday. He didn’t exactly look like the guy at USC who threw for like 380 yards and 4 touchdowns every game. Still, the Cardinals defense didn’t look too bad last week and the Cardinals did beat the Seahawks last year. Although I’m not picking them, the Cardinals are at home and if Leinhart can get it together I think they can pull this one off.

Dallas -4.5 vs. Miami
I initially picked Miami on this one but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that the Dolphins have little to no talent on offense and I would be an idiot to pick them. And for the record, I’m glad Wade Phillips and Cam Cameron aren’t with the Chargers anymore. I thought both were ridiculously overrated. As Wade Phillips found out last week playing Cover 4 every down and relying on your front seven doesn’t exactly work when you don’t have Shawn Merriman. And after looking at the Dolphins I set years Cameron remains head coach at 2.

Denver -9.5 vs. Oakland
The Broncos should win this one going away — especially with Josh McCown now hurt, but you have to figure in the Jay Cutler factor here. The Broncos out-gained the Bills 470-184 last week yet only won by a measly point. You wanna know why? Because Cutler had plays where, according to the game recap, he “blindly pitched a lateral to his left, over running back Selvin Young’s head (forcing Young to punch it out of bounds) and putting the Broncos in a deep hole, facing third-and-23.”

If you have money on a team, under no circumstance do you ever want to see the quarterback blindly pitching a lateral to his left. None. You hear me? None.

FREE MONEY

Jacksonville -11 vs. Atlanta
This game almost made it on the previous category but although I don’t trust the Jags, the Falcons looked ridiculously bad. Six sacks and two interceptions returned for a touchdown while scoring only three points against the Vikings. This is one of the games you pass on because you think that the point spread is too high and all of a sudden its 14-0 in the second quarter and you’re wishing you had thrown some scratch down on the game.

Pittsburg -10 vs. Buffalo
Although it was against the lowly Browns, Pittsburg looks like a team that’s going to be in the mix this year. As for Buffalo, they lost two defensive players last week and now they have JP Losman and a rookie running back in a tough road game this week. They Bills may be able to keep it close in the first half but the Steelers are going to blow the game open in the second half.

Cincinnati -8.5 at Cleveland
Two stats courtesy of the good people at Pro Football Weekly:

1. Cleveland is 1-12 vs. AFC North competition in head coach Romeo Crennel’s tenure.
2. Cincinnati outscored Cleveland 64-17 and out gained Cleveland 869-504 last season.

You can’t put this one on your bet card fast enough.

Chicago -13 vs. Kansas City
Last week’s drubbing by the hands of the Houston Texans confirmed the obvious: The Chiefs suck! Now they go on the road and face a 0-1 Bears team that’s still pissed off about losing to the Chargers last week. Unless Rex Grossman completely craps the bed, this one looks like an easy bet.

Speaking of Rexy, look what Ron Rivera told the Charger linebackers according to Matt Whilhelm: “He told us that Rex was kind of a mental midget so you can get into his head and create that doubt.” Since I dubbed Adam Eaton a mental midget a few years ago can we just call this the Adam Eaton Hall of Fame? I nominate Adam Eaton, Rex Grossman, Eli Manning, and Chris Webber to be in the inaugural class.

And you know what? That’s still not enough to deter me from picking against the Bears.

And if you don’t think I’m throwing J’ville, Pittsburg, Cincy, and Chicago down on what will probably be the easiest four team parlay this season, you’re crazy.