Maddux Sports Blog

I keep reading all over the internet about how Mark Sanchez was masterful, brilliant, and so on today. He was good, but I’m just not buying all the accolades. What he was was a young quarterback who was masterfully protected by his offensive coordinator. Just look at the stats – he threw only 15 passes. He completed 12 of those 15 passes, but it’s not that hard for a QB to have the time to be that accurate when a team establishes the run as effectively as the Jets did, and runs so relentlessly. The Bengals couldn’t consistently pressure Sanchez without being punished by Shonn Greene. The star here was Brian Scottenheimer, not Mark Sanchez. It’s typical of the Jets that the coordinator had one of his best days in the job in what is quite likely his second last game with the team.

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1. Matt Cassel – I was very impressed by Cassel last year, and I am fully in favor of the Chiefs’ decision to make him their QB of the future. That doesn’t mean that I don’t have more than a few concerns about his immediate future, though. His team is monumentally short of real talent around him, and there are real concerns about whether the offensive line will give him the time he needs, or the time he became used to last year. I am optimistic in the long term, but this year could be a real problem. The Chiefs weren’t a good team last year, and they have a lot of work left to do until they become a good team again.

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Well, it’s been an interesting day in professional football. The hallmark story involves the legendary Brett Favre, who, at 39 years old, turned down the starting spot with Minnesota today. Additionally, QB Michael Vick is certainly a person of interest these days and there are a few other guys who are worth considering.

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The New York Rangers have become the latest NHL team to make a coaching change. This is getting to be an epidemic – the NHL revolving door is almost as big as the NBA’s . Some coaching changes make at least a temporary difference – Ottawa went on a nice positive streak before going back into the tank. This one is going to make no difference at all. John Torterella is perhaps a slightly better coach than Tom Renney, but not by much. The bigger problem is that the world’s greatest coach couldn’t have success with the overpriced, underperforming mess that is the Rangers. They are beyond hope, and that won’t change until GM Glen Sather is run out of town. That won’t happen in a hurry, so the Rangers are not a team worth betting on. It must be something in the air at Madison Square Gardens or something – no competence is allowed.

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Most of the dust has cleared from signing day, and we have a pretty good sense of how things will turn out. As a Michigan fan I am reasonably pleased – we lost two defensive ends that we needed, but we gained three players we weren’t supposed to get including a promising QB prospect in Denard Robinson and a nice receiver. Given that we went an incredibly lousy 3-9 last year this is one heck of a class. We should end up about 7th overall. Rich Rodriguez never had a class at West Virginia anywhere near this strong, so I am feeling good. Hope things went as well for you and your team. Unless you like Ohio State, in which case I hope none of your recruits qualify academically, your current players all quit, and you are forced to use the tuba players in your band as the offensive line, and the drum major at QB.

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I’m amused by all the discussion of the benching of Donovan McNabb, the implications and the meaning. Growing up in Canada, I guess I am conditioned to be used to seeing stars benched. If a goalie is having a bad game he’ll often get the hook, no matter how big of a star he is. The player might not like it at the time, but it gets their attention usually, and they often come back next time and play like they are supposed to. I don’t see, then, why football is any different. McNabb got benched at half time of the Eagles’ game against Baltimore for one simple reason – he was totally, incredibly, and irredeemably awful. He was 8/18 for 59 yards and two picks. He deserved to be benched. The Ravens totally had his number, and Andy Reid, a guy who is now notably being referred to as a genius again after being washed up just a couple of weeks ago, had no reason to believe it was going to get any better. Since then, though, McNabb has pouted about the decision, pretended it wasn’t an issue when it clearly is, and done everything but move on and let it go. Here’s the thing, though – since McNabb was benched he has played much better, and he has led his team to where they should be. In other words, the move worked just like it was supposed to. I don’ get why we are still talking about this like it is a big deal almost two months after it happened. The way McNabb is dealing with it you would think the guy was somehow violated, not given a shot to regroup for another day. The sense of entitlement that he has, and that he is allowed to get away with, is ridiculous.

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