Great Football Day

The NFL aligned its schedule perfectly yesterday so that I got to see my favorite three teams play. Better yet? They all won!

The Viking special teams were on fire yesterday. TWO blocked punts. BOTH returned for touchdowns, and some good punt returns kept the Vikings in good field position all day long while never really moving the ball. Bridgewater did his job (no turnovers) and the Vikes surprisingly rolled to an easy win. Not exactly textbook but it still produced a very satisfying win for the Purple. The half-filled stands at the end told another story as well, Minnesotans no longer like cold weather games.

In the battle of future hall-of famers meeting for the first time, Aaron Rodgers was more impressive against a great New England defense than Tom Brady was against an average Packer defense. In fact, the Packers defense looked as good as they've looked all season. Bottom line? My Pack won because they were the better team with the better quarterback.

And to finish it all off, my Broncos beat KC AT KC last night.

A super satisfying day of great football, Sundays don't get any better than that. Especially when the person watching the games with you loves the games almost as much as you do.

Gophers Suddenly Remember They Are From Minnesota

The Gopher football team was dominating yesterday's game until midway through the second quarter. I imagine at that point, some player or coach, in a moment of attempted motivation said something like, "Remember boys, we're Minnesota."

Well, that was pretty much it after that. That awful realization suddenly hit them all in the face like a runaway freight train, and they played like a typical Minnesota team from that point on.

And Ohio State LOST their starting QB yesterday, too! We could have been champions next week!!!

Stupid coach should have kept his mouth shut...

Gophers Play Meaningful Game Today

As odd as it seems, the Gopher football team is going to play their first meaningful game in decades today. IF they beat Wisconsin today, they'll get the privilege of playing in the Big Ten Championship game against Ohio State on December 6th. Wow. The words "Gophers" and "championship" just don't get used together that much around here.

I don't expect much, but my hopes are still high. Go Gophers!

Thursday Football

I watched quite a bit of football yesterday. While having a great Thanksgiving meal with my aunt, we watched the first half of the Detroit Lions game. Calvin Johnson, Megatron, is still very impressive. He got his 10,000th receiving yard yesterday. That's the quickest anyone has reached that plateau. Both touchdown catches were amazing. Without him, Detroit would not be the same team.

I also got to see much the Eagles/Cowboys game yesterday afternoon as well. Mark Sanchez is shining under Chip Kelly's high-powered mostly no-huddle offense.  Of all the coaches in football, Kelly stands out. Play after play of offensive progress, with minor variations that always keeps the defenses off-guard, it is so different than what other NFL offenses muster. Sure Manning, Rodgers, and Brady do what LOOKS like the same thing for their teams, but it's the quarterback talent that makes them run so smoothly.

In Philly, it's Kelly's system. And it is incredible to watch. Except if you're a Cowboy's fan. Like yesterday. The Cowboys have a surprisingly good team this season, but Philly ate them for lunch.

Last night Seattle/Niners game was a bust. The Niners this season have reverted to a classic pro style offense, where they had a more open Chip Kelly like approach for most of the last two seasons. They simply aren't as good now. Seattle easily won while I watched something else.

Packers/Patriots

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Fascinating Trivia Today:

Rodgers and Brady have never faced each other before as starters.

How Little We Know About Our Twins

The Twins did name their bench coach on Tuesday. It will be Joe Vavra.

What's funny is that he already WAS our bench coach under Gardy. I'd be willing to bet most Twins fans didn't know that fact. What's NOT funny is that his duties will also include "catching instruction," you know, the job that Terry Steinbach had last year, because Josmil Pinto needs all the instruction he can get. That means Steinbach will not be back, except perhaps with a small spring training role.

That's scary for several reasons. It means that our new manager doesn't see the need to instruct raw talent properly. It means he doesn't want an elder-stateman type, ex-manager in that position whispering sage advice in his novice ears AND it means he doesn't want a young hotshot analytics, saber-mathematician whispering NEW ways in his ears either. In other words, we're going to have pretty much the same old, same old next year at managing.

The Twins don't need the same old, same old. We've had several disastrous years of that in a row already. If we wanted that, we could have kept Gardy, at least he saw the need for someone like Steinbach.

One more coaching position is open, the outfield instructor/ first base coach job. Is Twig still alive?

Molitor's coaching selections have told us a lot about who he will be as a manager. I guess he's going to rely on getting better pitching next season to make or break him.

Now that's really scary.

The Vikings and a Tale of Two Divisions

Pro team sports have a built-in inequity. It's called the "division" or "conference" depending on what sport you're talking about. The winners of these arbitrary divisions are rewarded with play-off births no matter what their record or how well they stack up with the rest of the league.

These conferences set up historical rivalries that, if done correctly, will produce more revenue for the teams. It will also give a local teams and their fans something to root for all season without having to pay attention to the rest of the league. In theory, it should help nearly every team in the league and most fans.

And then you have THIS year in the NFL. Vikings fans know they are having a bad season. They lost their starting quarterback and the league's premiere running back for the better part of a decade. As a result, they look less than adequate against much of the league and their conference.

EXCEPT that they'd fit in just fine this season in the NFC South. They'd be tied for first place with two teams if they played in that conference. And that's when these arbitrary divisions start getting noticed, especially when you compare them to the AFC North where every team is having a very good year.

One of the ways that these sports build rivalries is that you play teams in you division more often than everyone else. Again, in theory, that helps the fans build a long-term rivalry more effectively, but for practical purposes, it means if your conference is weak, you can be weak yourself and still make the playoffs, while much better teams will be forced to sit home and watch the playoffs.

The Eastern and Western Conferences in the NBA exhibit this every season. As an average team in a strong Western conference, the T-Wolves will rarely have a chance of making the playoffs. The Cleveland Cavaliers are off to a rough start in the East, yet, as of Monday morning were still the seventh best team in their conference. The top eight make the playoffs.

It's a side-effect of arbitrary divisions. Some good teams don't make the playoffs while some bad teams do. It leads to weird sense of unfairness among fans who root for their teams, who are having a good season, and yet are stuck on the outside looking in when they don't make it to the dance at the end of the season.

At least one team in the AFC North won't be going to the dance this year, while at least one from the NFC South will. That's just sad. It's no wonder that some fans become cynics as they grow older.

And write blogs.