Maddux Sports Blog

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.

2. As a Michigan fan, few things have been a bigger kick in the gut than watching Terrelle Pryor do his best Joe Montana imitation in Buckeye colors. For a guy making his first start, and a guy who is supposed to be a run-first QB, he looked as little like a raw, run-first QB as a guy can possibly look. He looked really, really good, all things considered. Of course, he’d look much, much better in maize and blue.

3. Teams like Vanderbilt are what makes college football simultaneously endlessly compelling and insanely frustrating. They enter the rankings at number 21 this week after starting out at 4-0. They’ve beaten two decent SEC teams already, and they are 4-0 ATS. Chris Nickson has been a decent two-dimensional QB who has avoided real mistakes. So what’s frustrating about that? The last time this team was ranked was briefly in 1984. More incredibly, the last time the team had a winning record was back in 1982 - well before an of their players was born. They are putting together a ver solid season, yet there wasn’t a lot of indication that it was coming, and there is no real way of knowing how long it will last. This team has gone from underdogs against Miami of Ohio to a ranked team. That’s not how the script was supposed to play out.

4. The Oregon quarterback situation is like something out of Disney. One of those ridiculous, totally unbelievable Disney flicks with Angels and that crap. They put in their fifth string QB on Saturday. Yes, fifth. Freshman Darron Thomas was going to redshirt, but they needed him after a stunning string of calamities. Nate Costa had a knee injury that ended his season. Justin Roper has had his bell rung too many times. Jeremiah Masoli is hearing bells, too, after a concussion. Chris Harper, a freshman, was next. He didn’t get hurt, he just wasn’t very good. That left it to Thomas, and that should have gone poorly. Very poorly. Instead, Thomas threw for 210 yards and three touchdowns. In one quarter. We can only assume at this rate that the guy in the Duck suit is going to be forced into action by game nine, and he’ll toss seven touchdowns or something.

5. The key to Atlanta’s success is obvious - play truly awful teams. They looked almost as good against Kansas City this week as they did against Detroit in the opening week. It was only when they played a fairly decent Tampa Bay team that things went awry. They have Oakland on the horizon, so that’s their chance to shine again. The problem, though, is that they have to get through Carolina, Green Bay, Chicago and Philadelphia before they hit the Raiders. I’m not even remotely fooled into believing that there is any legitimacy to the Falcons’ 2-1 record.

6. So much for writing off Ronnie Brown. A couple of weeks ago we were hearing rumblings that the Dolphins were sick of his act and that he could be on his way out of town. Not any more. If you missed it, Brown ran for four touchdowns on just 17 carries against the Patriots, and capped it off by throwing for a 19 yard TD, too. It was just one aspect of a stunningly dominant and wildly unpredictable runaway win by the Dolphins over the Pats - the first regular season loss for New England in 21 months. The craziest part of the very crazy game was that the Pats were able to exploit the same gimmick - a direct snap to Brown - six times, and the Pats weren’t able to adjust to it. Now the AFC East is a mess. New England is out of first place, and the Bills are in. The only problem is that the Bills are only there thanks to a last second win over lowly Oakland that was  much harder than it should have been. Their last second heroics are fun to watch, but sooner or later it will get the best of them. Or maybe not. Look at their schedule - 7-1 is a real possibility heading into their first game against New England. Like I said, the AFC East is a mess.

7. Who is that taking snaps for the Colts, and what has he done with Peyton Manning? The alarm bells should be sounding in that fancy new stadium of theirs.

8. Dallas is the best team in the league, and I don’t think that it is even close. I hate Marion Barber’s two fumbles, but that can be fixed. What I liked most about their win over Green Bay was that they beat a pretty decent team when Tony Romo was only okay.

9. Matt Schaub is not the answer in Houston. Not even close. He has only gone backwards since he took over the reins there, and the team won’t be any more than uninspiring with him at the helm without a major, major change. I can’t come up with a single good reason not to give Sage Rosenfels his shot. On the plus side, Steve Slaton had a heck of a game, and gave us yet more proof of how impressively deep this freshman running back class is.

10. Marvin Lewis is still the worst coach in the pros. It’s not even close, and taking the Giants to overtime does nothing to change that. Charlie Weis maintained his grip on worst college coach, too, though Bill Stewart is staking his claim.

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.

While I am avoiding that topic I need another, and I want to revisit something I discussed yesterday - my nemesis, Peyton Manning. There are a few more details coming out of Indianapolis about his situation, and it makes for some interesting pondering.

Given how private Manning and the Colts usually are, it struck me as odd that a story appeared in the Indianapolis Star suggesting that Manning might miss the first game of the season. That struck me as the kind of thing that doesn’t appear accidentally. Even though the team has repeatedly said Manning will be ready, the article struck me as potentially a way to at least advance the possibility that he won’t be. It also points out a problem that Indy has had ever since Manning arrived in town - he pretty much has to stay healthy because they have no other options. Let’s play a little game. Which one of these guys isn’t an Indy backup - Jim Sorgi, Ryan Dawson, Josh Betts? It’s Dawson, but you probably had to think about it, didn’t you? Manning has been ridiculously healthy, but that may not last in this league. Brett Favre is obviously a complete fluke, not a guy to model a franchise after.

Sorgi has obviously never had a start, and he has never played meaningful time in a game that matters when it was on the line. Betts replaced Ben Roethlisberger at Miami of Ohio, but he was undrafted when he graduated. He’s never appeared in a regular season game, and he spent his first season on the practice roster. Neither guy is anywhere close to ready to step in and fill in if Manning isn’t ready.

I really don’t understand why the Colts would put themselves in a situation like this. It makes no sense for their team, and it is very frustrating for bettors - at least teams with an adequate backup might present some value if the starter is hurt. The public will immediately bet any value out of a Manning-less Colts game.

Just one final thought. How excited to do think that the Colts organization would be about opening their fancy new stadium against the Bears on national TV with Sorgi under center. No one will be cheering for him to get healthy more than owner Jim Irsay.

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.

Interesting news out of Indianapolis today - Peyton Manning had knee surgery to remove an inflamed bursa sac. He’s been trying to recover since February, but surgery finally became the best option. He is expected back at his best in four to six weeks, and his consecutive game streak shouldn’t be threatened. It is amazing how some guys operate under the microscope while other mega-stars can totally elude scrutiny. Obviously being in Indianapolis has something to do with it - we know nothing about what Manning does when he isn’t on the field, and we knew nothing about Marvin Harrison until his alleged shooting incident in the spring (which has conveniently seemed to have gone away).

Again, I must qualify this next story by saying that summer league basketball is virtually meaningless. That being said, a couple of interesting performances came out in the first game for Minnesota and Dallas. The T-Wolves cruised to an easy win on the strength of an impressive showing by Kevin Love. The start was rocky, but he ended up with 18 points and 13 rebounds. I have reasonably high hopes that he will exceed expectations as a pro, so this was a good start. The other one to note was Dallas’ Shan Foster. The former Vanderbilt star had 17 points. Foster didn’t get the respect I think he deserved in the draft. He’s a bit one-dimensional, but he just knows how to score. He joins DeAndre Jordan and Chris Douglas-Roberts as guys who could wind up being major steals in the second round.

Strange story from the Islanders’ camp. They fired Ted Nolan today after two years as coach, citing differing philosophies between coach and management. Nolan was out of coaching for about a decade after winning coach of the year in Buffalo. He reportedly feuded with his goalie there, and many say he got his GM fired as well. In New York he got more out of the team than they deserved with the talent they had, but he reportedly feuded with his goaltender, and he obviously couldn’t get along with his GM. It will be very interesting to see if he will get another job, or if the emerging pattern will put him squarely back on the black list. Things must have been pretty bleak if they warranted his firing this long after the season ended, and this close to rookie camps and, as hard as it is to believe, the start of training camp. The new staff will be starting from behind.

Jeff Borris, the agent for Barry Bonds, says his client has not received a single offer from a team looking for his services, and that the prospects look bleak for him to play this year. I hate when bad things happen to good people.