Here’s my hit list of thoughts about the game and season that I don’t have time to expand upon right now:

• For the past two seasons, the Patriots season has came to end with a loss to a Manning.
• With the Patriots losing, the season no longer seems a loss. After the Colts lost to San Diego in the second round of the playoffs (and the second time this season), I seriously didn’t care about the playoffs any more this season, and my only interest was in seeing the Patriots lose. And honestly, I’m a little shocked due to what I know of football history.
• As I said before the game, the “odds” makers were off their rockers. These two teams played a tight game in week 17 and the Giants have been playing better while the Patriots seemed to be slowing down towards the end (just look at Tom Brady’s touchdown numbers plus the win margins). A two touchdown win either way was highly unlikely.
• Only after losing in the Super Bowl, the mainstream media admitted that a win by the Patriots would have been covered with a”cloud” due to their being caught cheating. Ya think!? Now maybe you backpeddlers can stop trying to teach my children that cheating is okay, as is “winning” at any cost.
• Roger Goodell needs to get some kahones and some smarts…
  • Fines and the “loss” of the 31st draft pick as the only means of punishment for cheating is ridiculous. Please, take a page from the NCAA’s punishment book…
    • Fines (the NFL has figured that one out).
    • A deduction in a teams’ salary cap for a certain period of time (to equate to the loss of scholarships in college). I’d personally allow them to keep their draft picks since that is the future of the team, not the “now”, which is who should be punished.
    • No post season play at all for a certain period of time, regardless of regular season record (that one might have worked out well for the Patriots this year though, depending who was still on the team after the salary cap cuts).
    • But we know the later items will probably never happen due to money and there’s probably some clause somewhere that forbids such action. I’m no lawyer, but I can imagine they’ve covered just about every angle.
    • I have heard the excuse that, “every team is doing it”. If that were the case, dish out the punishment across the board and give yourself a bit of integrity.
  • The destruction of the evidence is mind boggling and throws up conspiracy theory flags. I’m interested to see what the Senate is able to pull from that, but regardless, that just seems like a foolish move to me if there was nothing to hide.
• While Peyton still got quite a bit of air time, Eli has finally stepped out of Peytons’ shadow, at least somewhat. Eli still has a way to go to being as good as Peyton, but he also has his ring now, and did it faster than Peyton.

That’s all for now…let the usual flaming from Patriots fans begin. In the meantime, I’m personally looking forward to the Combine here in Indy, the 2008 draft and then what will hopefully be another spectacular season (including what should be a good game up in Green Bay). Wouldn’t it be a nice story line to have a Manning vs. Manning Super Bowl?

NFL & Big Ten, stop trying to charge the cable companies twice the price that they can get ESPN for. Sit down and do some simple math. No subscribers equals no money (for the Big Ten). And I can only speculate how many people have actually added the NFL Network since it was “free” last year and you only need it for a few weeks a year watch the Thursday night games. Being in every house, even at “half price”, is infinitely more revenue for the Big Ten and a nice chunk of change for the NFL Network.

(Sidenote: The NFL is showing games for free on their website, but it’s a little choppy even on a fast connection and there is way too much going on. Plus it’s small and you can resize it. It’s sort of like watching one of the major news channels with all kinds of other items going on around the video. And that’s not very watchable in my opinion. I am glad that they took to effort to do that though.)
Comcast, stop insisting on charging people $5 per month more for something that costs you sixty some cents per month (from the reports). Put it in the standard package and if you must ditch some channels to keep the price “down”, how about moving channels like Court TV and the Golf Channel to some special package add-on?

Anyway, I have no plans of switching to satellite for various reasons. And due to decisions by the politicians in the city years ago (which also got rid of “Public Access” TV), Comcast is my only option for “cable” until the phone service is upgraded in my area. Until then, I can only hope that these guys get it together or that affordable “a la carte cable” actually comes to fruition.

If you haven’t heard by now, there is a Writers Guild of America strike going on that is shutting down production of numerous television shows and probably cutting the television season short AND eventually resulting in cancellation of many shows. (Not to be mean, but to save you some time (which is what this post is about), if you didn’t know about the strike already, you should stop reading now. Seriously, go check out one of my other posts or see what Christmas gifts you can my that aren’t from China.)

Now for those of you who at least somewhat care about what’s on television, let me offer a few quick thoughts before I get to my real point.

• I did think that it was a bit odd that Jericho got renewed but a nut campaign. While it is indeed a neat story, and I do like the show, I’m starting to wonder if they agreed to order the seven new “mid-season” episodes so they’d have some new content in the can. That’s not really that far of a stretch is it? And who wouldn’t do that if you can see where things were headed in advance? Smart move in my opinion. And I will be watching.
• I also found it odd that only one show has been officially canceled so far and even shows like Cavemen are still seeing the light of day (I’ve not watched a full episode, but from what I’ve read, it doesn’t seem to get much love from the media and the bloggers). But when there’s really no mid-season, you might as well go with what is already available, right?
• It does sound like the writers have a valid argument (getting paid a small fee once with no royalties), and note that I have no love for the TV execs, but please guys, come to a fair resolution fast before:
  1. you’re not going to have a job to come back to and
  2. our televisions are subjected to even more “reality” garbage

Now with that said, here’s my point. Sports and entertainment strikes are a good thing.  Why?  Because they give me extra time.

From my postings, you can deduct that I do like television (especially Sci-Fi) and sports. But during the hockey strike a few years ago it became apparent just how much time I waste watching sports and other television and I have seriously cut back my “consumption”.

Hockey is no longer on television or cable on a regular basis, so I don’t watch that very often. Plus Comcast seems to have killed their “Hockey Live” streaming service this year, so it’s not usually an option anyway. (There’s no Comcast love from me.)  However, if you were to follow one team through a complete 82 game regular season, you spend 8 and a half, 24 hour days watching.

Baseball is good in September and October. Don’t get me wrong. I love baseball, especially attending games, but the time investment of 162 regular season games is way too much. If you only follow one team and watch every game and they only average two hours per game (which is a little low), that comes out to 13 and a half, 24 hour days over the course of a season. That makes the twelve hours of a sitcom (with commercials) sound like nothing.

Basketball. I don’t need to touch this much. And I’m probably one of the few Hoosiers in the state who doesn’t care much for basketball, college or pro, unless it is NCAA tournament time. (I love the brackets and those three weeks of college hoops.) At an 82 game season (for the pros), like hockey, it is still time consuming, coming in at around 7, 24 hour days a season, per team. Luckily on the college level I am no longer tempted to watch since the Big Ten Network took over and Comcast is trying to play the victim. (Sorry guys, I’m not buying it on either side.)

Football. OK, this one hurts to even mention and maybe it would be good if the NFL went on a strike (in addition to having the NFL Network, which Comcast has put on a “sports tier”) and every NCAA conference started their own channel (which Comcast refuses to air if I don’t shell out some extra dough). Because this one does suck up my time and I’m glad that it only lasts four months for the regular season (three months for college). Just on the pro level, we’re talking about 2 full days a season if I only watch the Colts games and don’t watch the pre and post game programming. But of course, on a typical weekend (Thursday-Monday) I semi-watch at least two college games and semi-watch three pro games (I do actually watch the entire Colts game when I’m not busy doing something else). While I’m not always glued to the tube (it’s often just on in the background), that still adds up to a lot of time. And please don’t ask about Bowl Week.

To put it into perspective, if over the course of a year I watched the regular season of one NHL team, one MLB team, one NBA team and one NFL team, that would equal an entire month of watching sports on TV, which doesn’t include any college games, nor time to sleep or do anything else.  And that also doesn’t include any television programs that I might want to watch.

So as you can see, it’s not such a big loss if sports and television programs that I actually want to watch just go away. It’s actually probably better that way as I have a whole lot more time on my hands to do things that need to be done.  So go on with your strike as long as you want.  I will find other, more productive, things to do with my time.

When I heard that the Colts picked up Simeon Rice off of waivers from the Denver Broncos, my hunch was that the move was possibly a little more dire than being reported when the announcement was made.  And today the Colts placed Dwight Freeney on Injury Reserve confirming that hunch.

While I’m glad that there was a veteran available to step in, the loss of Freeney is another painful nail in the injury coffin this season, especially on defense.  But the Colts are still the Colts and will make it through.  Someone who’s a second or third stringer always seems to step up to the task.

That said, let us please be done with the injuries for the season and get on with the rest of the season.  Then we’ll worry about the playoff picture at week 16 or 17.

GO COLTS!

Trolley Dodgers #51 and Trolley Dodgers #52 are now available. Spend 40 minutes with myself and Jeff getting caught up on the sports happenings from the past few weeks.

Last weeks loss to the New England Patriots at home was a little disappointing, but it did show that if you play your “A Game” and play the entire game, that New England is not the unstoppable juggernaut that the sports media would like you to believe. (Through the first three quarters the Patriots had one touchdown and one field goal. And not to mention their paranoid cheating allegations. Enough said.)

But in the overall scheme of things, the loss last week wasn’t such a huge deal. It only means that there’s a better chance that we’ll have to play in Foxboro in January instead of the comfy Dome.

Now to the game tonight against the San Diego Chargers…

I’ll start on a positive note as to not sound too bitter.

• Our defense (which supposedly sucks according to all “expert” accounts) was excellent. They allowed only 10 points, all in the first half. They had two interceptions. And they recovered a fumble for a touchdown. Oh, and did I mention that they suck?
• Our offense controlled the ball for 60% of the game.
• We had 386 yards of total offense.
• We only had 21 penalty yards.

Now to the more negative, the excuses as to why we lost this one that should have been another mark in the “W” column.

• We just came off of a bad loss.
• Peyton Manning threw a career high six interceptions. Not one. Not two. Not three. Not four. Not even five. SIX interceptions. He had four interceptions total in the whole first half of the season.
• It was raining.
• Peyton Manning threw six interceptions.
• We only had 17 active offensive players (and 15 by the end of the game).
• Peyton Manning threw six interceptions.
• Our special teams were anything but special, allowing for two touchdowns and not realizing that a touchback, or even an out of bounds kick, is better than giving up a touchdown.
• Peyton Manning threw six interceptions.
• Vinny was apparently having trouble seeing where the uprights were located. Twice. (Dare I mention nightmares from our previous kicker who was also one of the NFL’s elite?)
• Peyton Manning threw six interceptions.
• We received the losing end of an “inadvertent” blown whistle after an interception.
• Dare I mention for a sixth time that Peyton Manning threw six interceptions?

Say what you will about the above game killer list, but in my opinion this loss has to rest on Peyton Manning’s shoulders with the ridiculous amount of interceptions. Sure, it’s tempting to point to the special teams issues and the fact that so many players were out of the game on both sides of the ball, but you can’t really do that when your quarterback has an extremely unusual “off night”.

Yes, a few weeks ago Tony Romo proved that you can pull out the win while playing very poorly, but he was really lucky with his five picks and he knew that. And yes, we had ample opportunities to win the game and came close to doing so, but regardless if we had pulled it off, the interception issue seriously needs to be evaluated so it doesn’t happen again. (And you know Peyton is probably already watching the game film as I type this.)

Now don’t get me wrong. Being 7-2 still isn’t bad. And looking at our schedule I wouldn’t be surprised if we lose one or two more games to finish the regular season at either 12-4 or 13-3, still winning the AFC South. But my worst rational fear is that we’ll do this sort of thing in playoff game against a team that can capitalize on these sort of silly mistakes (like the Patriots or the Steelers). It has happened in the past and I’d rather not go there again.

So let me stop rambling about the past and look toward the future. We have seven games left and have a good shot at wrapping up the division and possibly even getting a first round bye for the playoffs (depending upon how the Steelers play). So there’s an outside shot at one home playoff game and a handful of really good playoff games. Another trip to the Super Bowl will not be an easy task, but it is doable. Let’s see how the rest of the regular season shapes up first though.

NOTE: If you want to leave a voicemail comment for The Trolley Dodgers Podcast, you can do so at 317-565-425.

This has to be the oddest PR I’ve seen around town in sports marketing (even toping some of the Indianapolis Ice promos in the past)…

Now if only the “aliens” would abduct certain players and plant a “common sense chip” in them.

The site that this video/commercial mentions, worldunexplained.com, just takes you to the plain Pacers home page. I think that would have had some marketing potential for the season as a whole (and would be kind of fun to organize), but hey, it’s a start of thinking outside of the box, right?

(Shameless plug: we’re for hire if they need some help.)

Here’s the Naptown Roller Girls / Tornado Sirens 2008 home bout schedule (a.k.a. “Season 2″). This coming season we’re treated to six home bouts instead of five. And while not officially announced yet, I’m assuming that the bouts are going to take place out at the Indiana State Fairgrounds again this year.

December 29 – “It’s a BOUT Time”
NRG vs. Kalamazoo Kamikaze Roller Girls from Michigan

February 9 – “Shove ‘em & Leave ‘em”
NRG vs. Burning River Roller Girls from Ohio

March 22 – “Lucky Harm”
NRG vs. Cincinnati Roller Girls from Ohio (WFTDA)

April 19 – “The Pint of No Return”
NRG vs. the Brew City Bruisers from Wisconsin (WFTDA)

May 17 – “Valley of the Brawls”
NRG vs. Pikes Peak Derby Dames from Colorado (WFTDA)

June 14 – “Hoosier Daddy”
NRG vs. Dixie Derby Girls from Alabama (WFTDA)

It’s hard to put into words the ambiance of a roller derby bout (and the crowd)…it’s just something you need to check out for yourself firsthand. I only made it out to one bout last year and was totally amazed at how much fun it was. The excitement was similar to when we had a “real” hockey team in Indy (the IHL version of the Indianapolis Ice)…and I might go out on a limb and say it’s even more exciting than hockey if you sit in the “Suicide Seats” where you’re actually right up on the track, sitting on the floor (remember, this is flat track, not that stuff you saw on TV in the 70’s and 80’s). And if you’re a fan of Arena Football, you’ll probably get into this.

I’d probably suggest leaving the really little ones at home, though there is a “family section” if you choose to bring them. That suggestion is based on your own enjoyment more than anything else…and there*may* be some things, mainly roller girls and refs “names”, that you don’t really want to explain to your kids in case they ask, or have them repeat them. Also, if you’re brave (or stupid) enough, like me, and actually want to sit in the Suicide Seating area, you do have to be 18 years old to do so.

See you there, down in front!

Trolley Dodgers #50 is now available. Get caught up on the sports happenings from the past week.

Trolley Dodgers #49 is now available. Go get caught up on the sports happenings from last week.

Trolley Dodgers #48 is now available.  Go get caught up on the sports happenings from last week.

In our usual fashion the Indianapolis Colts lost a preseason game, but considering that the offensive starters played a whole three minutes I’d say that we actually didn’t do too bad by only losing by 13 points to the Dallas Cowboys.

While it’s a little hard to tell where you really stand in preseason games, it’s clear that the defense needs some improvement, but overall didn’t do too bad by only giving up 16 points.   While 16 points isn’t a stellar number, with our starting offensive we’ll win almost any game that we can hold an opponent to under 16 points so long as our offense or special teams don’t give away some free points.

That said, the time of possession for the opposing offense, especially early in the game, worries me a little.  We have a very fast offense which is useful, but our defense is a bit slow and allows teams to charge up the field with the run while chipping away at the clock.  Luckily our defense only allowed the Cowboys to reach the end zone once last night, but in the regular season I don’t see that happening.  Something must be done to give these guys a more level playing field as far as rest time goes.  But it is only preseason, right?

I can hardly believe that it’s already time for football to start, but boy am I ready for it along with some cooler temperatures and stove tops full of chili.

The WORLD CHAMPION Indianapolis Colts kick off the 2007 NFL preseason tonight against the Dallas Cowboys, and you can be assured that I’ll be watching even though it doesn’t matter for the season standings.

I think that our offense will be stellar again this season, but the “D” is a huge question mark. So seeing what sort of defense we can put together in the preseason will matter this year and if we can do better than the seasons in which we had to put up 35+ points to win a game,we should have a chance for another good run.

And boy, is our schedule a doozie with only a handful of seemingly “easy” wins. But that’s to be expected with wining the Super Bowl, so we can’t really complain too much, especially since New England is on our turf.

Here’s the complete run down:

Go Colts!

* All times local to Indianapolis. Kickoff Times may change after Week 11 due to Flex Scheduling.

Via the Indy Star…

A stormy eight-year relationship between Indianapolis Motor Speedway and Formula One ended today with the announcement the international racing series would not return in 2008.

IMS chairman Tony George and F-1 boss Bernie Ecclestone could not reach an agreement on a sanctioning fee to continue the U.S. Grand Prix. George had set today as a deadline for a new contract.

As long as the pompous Ecclestone is in charge of F1, that is fine by me.  I have never been to an F1 event as it just doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me (parade “racing” and team “racing”) and I think a lot of Americans are in the same boat.  The main downside is that it will lose the city quite a bit of business for that week, but hey, we’re building a bigger and better convention center, right?   And next year the MotoGP comes to town, so that should help out and hopefully that will be a bit better than the GP car racing.

I must admit that the competitive eating circuit intrigues me a bit (and sort of disgusts me at the same time).

With that said, I am happy to see Major League Eater Joey Chestnut beat reigning champion Takeru Kobayashi AND set a new hot dog record (66 hot dogs and buns in 12 minutes) in the 2007 Nathan’s 4th of July Hot Dog Eating Contest. (Apparently Kobayashi had a “reversal of fortune” but was credited with 63 hot dogs.)

How gluttony became a sport AND entertainment is beyond me, but I must say that I’d prefer to watch that over any reality program.

[Photo courtesy of and copyright held by Chris Chin -- Thank you, thank you, thank you!]

The 2007 NBA Draft wasn’t that full of surprises…Greg Oden went #1 to the Portland Trail Blazers with Kevin Durant going #2 to the Seattle SuperSonics. The other two Indiana All-Stars, Mike Conley Jr. and Josh McRoberts, went #4 to the Memphis Grizzlies and #37 to the Portland Trail Blazers respectively.

The Indiana Pacers on the other hand pretended that they got into the draft this year, and I’m not going to join them on their journey into Neverland by pretending that I know what these goof-balls are up to. Something seriously needs to happen in the Pacers front office in order to make us a contender once again. Bad decision after bad decision has just hosed us to the point of only having one chip left to play, and that chip is a bit overinflated.

Who knows, maybe we can swing a deal with Portland to give Jermaine O’Neal back to them (along with the rest of the team) in exchange for Oden & McRoberts and then somehow steal Conley Jr. away from Memphis (maybe give them our “drafts” that are staying across the pond). Can you imagine the potential of having those three guys on the roster three or four seasons from now. And just the fact of having three “local boys” on the roster would sell out the Fieldhouse year-after-year.

But I digress as that will never happen for multiple reasons even if the other teams were willing. And I seriously wouldn’t be surprised to see Portland try to swing a deal to land Conley Jr. down the road provided the trio is healthy and have delivered on their expectations. Time will tell.

It’d been years since I had been out to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway (I think the last time was 2001 when I went to the Indy 500), and even longer since I had been to the track on a weekday (I was in college the last time that happened). So, being self-employed this year provided an excellent opportunity to go to my first “Fast Friday” (with my dad, my brother-in-law & a friend), and I must say that there was quite a bit more track traffic than I had seen on any Carb Day I’d been to in the past.

The highlight of the day (besides watching the cars) had to be snapping over 1300 pictures of the cars, drivers, fans & “celebrities”. That alone is quite a feat and a quite daunting task to pick out the “best of”.

While down by the pits we saw Ryan Briscoe, Scott Sharp, Bobby Rahal, Johnny Rutherford and A.J. Foyt (telling the crew that he didn’t have all day to sit there…ugh, where are you going?). And we also saw Saliva in the pits, but opted out of the concert as we were a bit tired and hot. (If you don’t know who Saliva is, you’re not alone…I guess I’m starting to show my age a bit with my current music choices.)

For more photos, check out the Fast Friday 2007Photo Gallery.

…but not gone from the team?

**From the 1070 WIBC NewsCenter**

Pacers’ President of Basketball Operations Larry Bird says Head Coach Rick Carlisle will not return as head coach next season. Bird has invited Carlisle to move into the front office with the team.

Nothing against Rick, but what’s up with that? Maybe something in his contract?

Anyway, what coaches are available that would be along the lines of The General? I think that might be what we need for a few seasons around here to fix the mess left behind from the Isiah Thomas era. This off season should be interesting.

Normally I’d root for the hometown team, but towards the end of this season I had root against the Indiana Pacers winning enough games to make the playoffs.  They clearly didn’t deserve to go for oh so many reasons, and is it just me, or does anyone else out there think that you should have to go at least .500 on the season to be eligible for the playoffs?  Stick to a 16 team format, but if there aren’t 16 teams at .500 or better, start handing out first round byes.  (Oh, but that would lose money for the league, right?)

Anyway, I am hoping that the Pacers clean house from management through the entire roster*.  Draft wise they’re hosed at the moment with a single second round pick, but trading Jermaine could probably land a few picks.  And trading the rest of the team ought to be able to gain a few more picks as well.  But looking at their draft pick history, that’s probably a bad idea since the poor choices far outweigh the few good ones.  Maybe they should pick up a handful of young guys (drafted or not) and land a few stable veterans to mentor the youth.  Maybe, just maybe, that would help things out, and get them back to really winning in about three or four seasons down the road.

Bottom line, they need to make some drastic changes and get some people on board who are committed to spending more time on the court than in court and to stay away from the bars and strip clubs.  Will that happen?  Your guess is as good as mine, but one would hope that they finally get the hint after the past few seasons of complete embarrassment with their personnel decisions.

* In the history of the NBA or ABA, has there ever been a team that had no players on their roster from the previous season (1st year expansion teams excluded)?