Maddux Sports Blog

I’m off on one final holiday of the summer to rest up for the frenzied joy of football season. I won’t say exactly where I am heading, but for the next 10 days I will be in a small western Canadian town that is quite likely the greatest place on earth. There’s a lake, mountains, sunshine, great food, good beer, and few people. Heaven. I didn’t want to leave you all high and dry while I was gone, so thanks to the magic of technology a new article will appear each of the next nine days. We are in the last lazy days of summer, so I wanted to do something that has the potential to be fun, but which also will help to get us ready for the upcoming NFL season. Each day will feature a top five list (or a bottom five as the case may be) on a different theme. Read, enjoy, discuss in the comments, and have a great week. Without further ado:

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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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1. I think that I’m not yet convinced that Chase Daniel is the clear Heisman leader that people say he is. Sure, the stats are compelling – he’s top five in the country in completion percentage, passing yards, yards per attempt, yards per game, and touchdowns. He’s only been sacked once, and he’s thrown just one pick. On top of all that, he completed 20 in a row against Buffalo. Here’s the thing, though – he’s only played one BCS team – Illinois – and his stats in that game were significantly worse than the rest – his completion percentage was 25 points worse, his yards per attempt were much worse, and both the pick and the sack came in that game. It’s not exactly like the Illini are known for their stout defense, either. Don’t get me wrong, I like him and his team. I just want to hold judgment until he gets through his tough stretch of next four games – Nebraska, Oklahoma State, Texas, Colorado. That’s a much better test of where he is at than what we have seen so far.

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I’m going to avoid talking about the All-Star game before it happens because, well, it bores the hell out of me. I love baseball as much as the next guy, but I don’t think it lends itself particularly well to an exhibition format – especially one that none of the players really care about. If pitchers were all supposed to only pitch an inning a game then they’d all be called closers, and each team would have 18 of them. If I had to I would bet on the American League, but I would rather bet on cricket.

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We learned  couple of things from the Home Run Derby tonight – it can incredibly entertaining, and the overall format is flawed. Watching Josh Hamilton’s tour de force was one of the coolest things I have done in a long while. The problem, though, is that no one cared about the result after that all happened. Justin Morneau is a fellow Canadian, and I am proud of him for coming through, but he didn’t deserve to win, and no one cares that he does. Instead of making it a three round contest like it is which just tires out batters and pitchers and rarely builds to a dramatic finish, it is time they tweak it a bit. They should invite a few more guys to participate, give each guy a few more outs, and just have one round. It didn’t matter what happened after Hamilton did his thing, so the format should be such that he didn’t have to do anything. The way it is now, Morneau hit fewer home runs in three rounds than Hamilton did in one, and he still won.

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