4/27/07

The NFL Draft is coming up this weekend, which means we get to turn our attention back to the NFL for a few hours. The NFL Draft has spiked through the roof in popularity the last few years, for several reasons.

First, the NFL is the best run professional sports league in the world, bar none. The sport has the entire country by the short and curlys, and so anything NFL related will draw attention.

Second, the Draft is where college and pro ball come together for a weekend, so for fans of both (like myself) we get to see where these college greats will start out their professional careers.

Third, the Draft is where we get to see how months of evaluation, deception, and back room dealing comes to fruition. We've been hearing about this damn thing for several months now, and now we get to see how it will all fall out.

Fourth, every team gets their moment in the sun, and the worse the team, the brighter the spotlight is on them. Raiders fans had to sit through a miserable year last season, and their reward is, the get to be the ones making the first pick and setting the rest of the draft in motion. All eyes are on Oakland right now, with Detroit right behind them. Indianapolis, who just won the Super Bowl, is way off of everyone's radar.

My team, the Redskins, is slated to pick 6th. Of course, with teams on the move all the time on Draft Day, there is no guarantee that that is where they will actually end up picking. And it seems the Redskins are desperate to move out. They have reportedly offered trades to the Bears, Patriots, and Panthers to swap the 6th with their pick in exchange for a veteran player. They have also had their eyes on everyone, including LSU QB JaMarcus Russell, according to reports. However, I'm not sure that all this noise necessarily means anything. Two years ago, the Redskins made a covert attempt to move into position to get Auburn QB Jason Campbell. The cover was blown, however, and although they did end up getting their man, team officials were unhappy that their plans were put out in the open like that. The lesson here was that the Redskins, being the 800 lb gorilla of NFL teams, can't really sneak around. So, instead, the team appears to have taken on the tactic of making as much noise as possible and hoping their real plans are camaflouged by all the rouses. One thing is for sure, this year, no one will be sure exactly what the Redskins are planning on doing until they do it.

My prediction? The Skins stay at 6 and draft Louisville DT Amobi Okoye.

Check back with you to recap this thing on this blog Tuesday. Politics tomorrow; I'll be racapping the Dem debate from last night on MSNBC.

5/24/07

So much going on in the world of sports, it's dificult to keep up sometimes.

I'll start out with the NHL playoffs. Round 1 finally ended last night, with the Vancouver Canucks taking down the Dallas Stars in game 7 of the last remaining series. Round 2 of the NHL and NBA playoffs is right around the time when I start paying serious attention to those two leagues - which means I'll probably start blogging about the NBA playoffs this time next week. Unfortunately, because I'm not paying attention to the leagues before then, I'm really not too sure who is any good, especially with the NHL, which gets short thrift in media coverage even during the playoffs. But I do know which teams I like, and which teams I cheer for. It breaks down like this:

If the Capitals are in (they aren't), they're always the number 1 team.

Once the Capitals are eliminated, I cheer for whichever Canadian teams are left standing.

After that, I cheer for the Northern teams from smaller markets (Pittsburgh, Buffalo, etc.) along with the Blackhawks (who are always terrible) and the Bruins (who, along with the Celtics, are the only Boston teams I don't mind).

Then it's the California teams - the Sharks, Ducks, and Kings, in that order, followed by the New York Islanders (yes, it's New York, but they're not the city's glamour team).

Then you have a mess of teams I don't care about one way or the other.

Finally, the teams I don't want to win the Cup, from the ones that bother me the least to the most offensive...

Avalanche, Devils, Red Wings, Rangers, Stars

And of course, at the very bottom, is Philadelphia.

So, the final 8 NHL teams are, from the team I want to win the most to the team I want to win the least, are:

1. Canucks
2. Senators
3. Sabres
4. Sharks
5. Ducks
6. Devils
7. Red Wings
8. Rangers

Ok, onto baseball.

As you all know, I have serious problems with the way baseball is run. However, the game itself remains my favorite, and so every year I'm drawn to it. This year has started off rather promisingly for my Baltimore Orioles, who have gone 11-5 after an 0-3 start. The bullpen, which received the bulk of the attention in the offseason, has turned into one of the strongest in baseball, and the Orioles seem to have developed a startegy of taking opposing SPs deep into pitch counts and working thier way into a battle of the pens, which has them coming up in the win column more often than not. If the team wants to be in the playoff picture, however, they need to find a way to add one big time bat to drop in the middle of their line-up. As it is, they have 9 players who are very tough outs (at least, they will once Ramon Hernandez comes back), but no batter who puts fear into opposing pitchers, and you need at least one of those to be a post-season team, especially coming out of the AL East.

As for the bigger picture, as the Cardinals proved last season, once you get to the playoffs, anything is possible, so trying to picka World Series winner is foolish. I will, however, make a guess as to the 8 playoff teams. In the AL, I like the Red Sox, Yankees, White Sox, and A's. In the NL, the Dodgers, Mets, Braves, and Cardinals.

Ok, that's all for now. More on both MLB and the NHL on Friday. Politics tomorrow. Tata...