In 2005, the AFC West was home to three clear cut playoff-caliber teams. Unfortunately, only one of them, Denver, actually reached the postseason. This is probably the deepest division in the AFC and may be at risk to beat each other up all year, causing another couple of playoff-worthy teams to be cut down again. Find out in the fourth part of the series…
Training camps are about to start, fantasy leagues are being set up, and everyone’s starting to get football fever. This is the best time of the year… if you don’t count the 21 weeks when football is actually being played. So, what could be better than the third part of this series, as we take a look at the AFC South?
There is a new generation of baseball players coming up and they have taken the baseball world by storm. Move over Barry Bonds, Randy Johnson and Mike Piazza. Here comes Cabrera, Kazmir and Mauer.
As we continue to grow ever closer to the start of the NFL season, anticipation of the upcoming fall grows as well. In the second part of this 8 part series, we’ll take a look at the AFC North and try to whet your appetite with a little football appetizer.
The NFL season is just around the corner and, personally, I just can’t wait. There are plenty of intriguing story lines leading up to the 2006 season. Many teams changed their look drastically in the off season. This is the beginning of an 8 part series to break down every NFL team, looking toward the upcoming year. We will look at the moves the teams made in the off season and what their strengths and weaknesses are. This is the first installment, previewing the AFC East.
By Rob LaBrie
Don’t look now, but the Boston Red Sox have won 8 games in a row, including today’s victory which followed a walk-off two run homer by David Ortiz. Yes, the Sox are surging and currently have a 2.5 game lead on the New York Yankees, who had their game rained out tonight.
Fantasy football is just around the corner and the hundreds of thousands of people who play every year can smell it. For everyone, this is going to be the year. This year, you’re going to take the trophy back from Bill in accounting. However, in order for these early title dreams to come true in January, you need to be prepared. If you aren’t ready for curveballs, you may find yourself calling out “Chad Pennington!” with your first pick amongst the confusion.
There are so many areas you need to be prepared for, but none is more important than quarterback. Many experts may say that running backs are more important, but in most leagues, it’s the quarterback that typically scores the most points in a given week. Also, in most leagues, you only use one quarterback, whereas you use two running backs. This gives you two chances for success in the back field, but only one shot at a good signal caller. Hopefully, a little categorization of the ample amount of quarterbacks in the field will help ease some pain come draft day.
By Rob LaBrie
It’s the greatest night of his life. The young man anticipates his name being called, but never truly believes it until the announcement comes from David Stern. The Boston Celtics are the team he’ll be playing for. Sounds like a pretty good deal; not too far away from home and he’ll be playing for a team that can win. In fact, with him on the team, they’ll be dominating for sure.
The next day, he heads up to Boston for a while with his father to go scout the place out and meet some important figures on the team. He flies home the next night and arrives at College Park, where his dorm is located, around 11 p.m., still slightly draft drunk as so much has been packed into a couple days. He relaxes for a little while with friends until around 2 a.m. The young man is sick of his friends constantly drilling him on his new team and new found fame, sounding like all the reporters he’s had to face. He heads out in his new Nissan 300ZX. He comes back around 3 a.m. He stays up for a few hours, high on cocaine, talking to his teammate, Terry Long. At 6 a.m., he collapses on his couch for the deepest of sleeps. Len Bias is dead at age 22.
Barry Bonds has done it. He has beaten the one man who we truly can say was “bigger than the game”. Bonds has hit 715 homers as of today, one more than Babe Ruth’s career total of 714. This is something that has only been achieved once in baseball history, but with steroid allegations looming, there wasn’t much enthusiasm for this milestone outside of the Bay Area.
We fans can feel cheated all we want. We can feel that we were deceived and that we wasted money to see Victor Conte’s chemistry project bash baseballs into McCovey’s Cove. However, we are not the victims here. The game of baseball is not the victim here, because it is the fans who decide what the game truly is. If we keep paying our money to see games and celebrating the game and its athletes, baseball will be fine. The real victim here is the big-headed one himself, Barry Bonds.
By Rob LaBrie
While baseball (or football depending how you look at it) may be America’s national past time at the pro level, golf is becoming America’s “Every Man” game. Ever since the emergence of Tiger Woods made golf cool again, people all over the country have been picking up the game. I, myself, am an avid golfer. I take my 10-handicap to my local golf course, Beaver Meadow, almost everyday during the summer. There’s just something about being around good people, nature, and the relaxing atmosphere that makes the game irresistible.
Unfortunately, every once in a while you come across someone that nobody wants to play with. Becoming one of these “Singletons” is actually very easy. Just follow this simple advice and you won’t be playing with other humans for a long time.