Maddux Sports Blog

Some looking back, and some looking ahead:

1. Peyton Manning. There is no question – he lost that game with a pass he shouldn’t have made. That’s not the only reason that New Orleans won, of course, but it was the final straw, and he made the mistake when the team had a very legitimate chance of, at the very least, getting to overtime. I had a long debate with a guy at my Super Bowl party last night. It’s not that I really hate the guy. I don’t like because I haven’t since college, but I can respect what he does. What my issue is, though, is that he gets far more credit than he deserves – than any guy deserves. He’s a great regular season quarterback, but the fact is that he is just 9-9 in his career in the playoffs, and he has now made the Super Bowl twice and played well below his capabilities both times. I believe in giving lots of credit when it’s due, but I have a real issue with worshiping a guy just because he’s a good guy if the facts don’t back it up. The facts are this – if anyone other than him had his playoff record they would face serious criticism. All I’m saying is that he should, too.

Click Here to Read the Rest of Wrapping Up The Super Bowl.

What follows is my opinion only, and not necessarily the opinion of everyone else here at Maddux Sports:

The Saints are going to win the Super Bowl. I have many good reasons why I have come to this conclusion, but here are seven:

Click Here to Read the Rest of My Super Bowl Two Cents.

As the biggest of games inches closer here are some of the storylines and angles that are factoring into my thinking about a potential outcome:

1. The road to this game. I was pretty high on the Cardinals coming into their game against the Saints. New Orleans demolished them. Minnesota was a tough, dangerous team that New Orleans found a way to get past as well. Baltimore and the Jets are both teams that can do a couple of things well, but there was little doubt in either case that the Colts were the far superior squad. If you factor in the last two weeks of the regular season and the bye week and the week off you have to go back a long way to find a game in which the Colts played an opponent that could legitimately have beaten them barring some strange circumstance. This is going to be a new level of intensity for the Colts while the Saints are just facing more of the same.

Click Here to Read the Rest of Three Super Bowl Storylines.

I can’t put my finger one why exactly it is, but I’m not as excited about this Super Bowl as I have been in the past. It doesn’t necessarily make a lot of sense. I mean, I have a whole lot of respect for both offenses, and both defenses have enough problems that there is a good chance that those offenses are going to be at their best. I love scoring. Both teams are also likable, hard working, well coached squads that are easy to respect and root for. You know that neither is likely to get themselves into trouble off the field, so there was no concern about the headlines being dominated by anything other than football this year. That’s a good thing. The teams were the class of their conferences all year, and unquestionably deserve to be where they are. There’s nothing to complain about in that sense, either. This should be a game that I am thrilled about. On paper it certainly is. I even think that it should be a good, entertaining game. So why am I finding it hard to care? Here are four possible reasons:

Click Here to Read the Rest of Super Bowl – I’m Not On The Edge Of My Seat.

Here are eight things coming to mind tonight. Tomorrow we’re going to start our Super Bowl coverage, so we’ll get this out of the way first:

1. Michigan got the signing day miracle I was hoping for by signing Demar Dorsey. Not a bad class all in all – at least we didn’t lose anyone. Incidentally, Dorsey is an interesting example of how imprecise ranking recruits can be. Dorsey is the 12th ranked player in the country and the second best safety according to ESPNU. In contrast, Rivals has him at 167th overall, and 13th among the safeties. For the sake of my sanity I am going to believe ESPNU on this one.

Click Here to Read the Rest of Eight Quick Hits.

As many of you know, tomorrow is national signing day – the first day on which high school seniors can sign their letters of intent for their chosen football schools. It is always a tense, exciting day for college fans everywhere as they hope to keep their best recruits on board and hopefully steal one or two from other places. As a Michigan fan I am particularly nervous about tomorrow. We only have a borderline acceptable class coming in and we have a boatload of needs, so there isn’t room for any problems, and we could really use a miracle or two.

Click Here to Read the Rest of Signing Day Drama.

The Hornets can’t be happy with the loss of Chris Paul for at least a month thanks to a knee injury – it’s hard to be happy when you are losing perhaps the best point guard in the league. Still, the way that Darren Collison has played the last two games no one is really going to miss Paul at all. In his first game against New Orleans on Saturday the former UCLA guard erupted for 17 points and a gaudy 18 assists. Tonight he was almost as good against Phoenix, with 16 points and 14 rebounds – this time in just 36 minutes. These outbursts are the two career highs in assists for the rookie, and only his second and third time in double digits.

Click Here to Read the Rest of An Injury and a Shakeup.

I really, really, really hate the Pro Bowl. Total waste of time, and totally pointless as a handicapping exercise. Here are 10 reasons why:

1. It’s boring. Name the last time that there was an exciting Pro Bowl. You can’t because it has never happened.

Click Here to Read the Rest of I Hate The Pro Bowl!.

Today is Hockey Day in Canada, the once yearly day when all six Canadian NHL teams play other Canadian teams, and when the CBC, the NHL broadcaster in Canada, shows all of the games and makes a big deal of it. It’s a made-for-TV event, but one that works reasonably well. Unfortunately, this game also represents an all-time low in a once-great rivalry.

Click Here to Read the Rest of A Messy, Pointless Battle.

News of note as we head into an uncharacteristically slow weekend of sporting action:

Minnesota Vikings’ fans are not going to be happy. The NFL has admitted today that the play in which Favre hurt his ankle in the third quarter was called incorrectly. Favre threw an interception on the play, though New Orleans didn’t score on the subsequent play. The league has now said that the play should have resulted in a penalty because Favre was hit from behind, and that the Vikings should have had a first down on the New Orleans 19. At the very least, then, they would have wound up with a field goal, and that would have made all the difference. Though I don’t disagree with what the league said, I really have to wonder why they bother saying anything now – unless they have interest in driving Minnesota fans insane.

Click Here to Read the Rest of Friday Notes.