College football as we know it on the line

I’m not smart enough nor do I have the time right now to understand ins and outs of college football’s Bowl Championship Series. If you do an archive search on this blog, which typically focuses more on the NFL than college football, you’ll see that neither my brother nor I like the BCS as it sits right now.

But I would guess neither of us would claim to be an expert on what conferences make huge chunks of money or whose teams have the worst chances of being selected for the big money bowl games.

I was intrigued during the last couple weeks, however, as discussion emerged about the possibilities of the Big Ten, which includes the University of Minnesota where we both went to college, potentially adding any number of teams from big name Notre Dame to up-and-coming Rutgers, to recent power Missouri to trying-to-re-emerge Nebraska.

But I’ve been hesitant to embrace the talks too much because when you follow college sports you know that A) the BCS sucks and B) there is always a money angle somewhere along the line.

Yahoo! Sports has a fantastic story describing one view of how the Big 10 fought off a “plus one” playoff format a couple years ago as part of a plan to get its own network up and running so it could now raid the Big 12 and become one of what could become three or four “super conferences”. (more…)

Hall of Fame Announces 2010 Finalists

The finalists for the Pro Football Hall of Fame Class of 2010 were announced on Friday, with three first-year eligible players heading the group:

Jerry Rice – Wide Receiver – 1985-2000 San Francisco 49ers, 2001-04 Oakland Raiders, 2004 Seattle Seahawks

Emmitt Smith – Running Back – 1990-2002 Dallas Cowboys, 2003-04 Arizona Cardinals

Tim Brown – Wide Receiver/Kick Returner – 1988-2003 Los Angeles/Oakland Raiders, 2004 Tampa Bay Buccaneers

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Stay Classy, Philadelphia Eagles Fans

I’m sure this is already posted all over the interwebz, but we just had to post it as well:

Stay classy, Philly fans.

While we frequently criticize the league and/or teams for trying to take the fun out of the game, someone needs to step up on this one–the team should be going after anyone that they can catch for throwing the snowballs, and suspending their ticket privileges, whether season ticket holders or single game ticket buyers.

And if the team doesn’t go after the guilty parties, then the league needs to step in with fines for the team, and/or suspensions–hell, make them play in front of an empty stadium.

A bit harsh?  Well, just wait until some of the fans start pouring some water or beer on the snowballs to make them ice balls–or putting batteries in them, or something else more solid than snow.

And you know it will happen–and then someone is really going to get hurt, or worse.

Finally, an NFL Team Gets Uniform Redesign Right

Somehow the official announcement got past us, but I picked up on an article today regarding the effort to put the stripes back on the San Francisco 49ers new uniforms, and I have to say, it’s nice to see a team change their uniforms using their past as a guide, rather than using Nike and the Arena League as their inspriation.

I never understood why the 49ers added the drop shadow to the numbers on their uniforms in the first place–and apparently, by eliminating, the new uniforms are lighter now as well.  Maybe the uniforms will help Mike Singletary get more out of his players?

Hopefully this will start a trend in the league, and we will see a return to classic uniforms for more teams, for more than just 1-2 “throwback” games a year.  The Vikings, in particular, always look way sharper in their classic duds with stripes on the sleeves and grey facemasks.

We can only hope that the Titans, Bills, Seahawks and other teams that have fallen in love with pastel and monochrome arena league style uniforms will follow.  Before they start putting ads on the uniforms.

Ogden retiring, Ravens to suck

As my brother stated earlier today I am on record uttering the rather tepid statement “the Browns will be a team to watch this year.” I’m not really going out on a limb with that prediction – it could mean I think the team will win 13 games and win the Super Bowl just as easily as it could mean I think they are going to be a complete trainwreck.

In truth I think the Browns will be something around the 10 win team they were last year – maybe a game better, maybe a game worse – but I think they will be a helluva fun team to watch. The schedule is tougher this year, which is the only reason I hedge, but I think it’s a team with the potential to reach the playoffs and make some noise when it gets there.

My next statement will be a bit more concrete: The Baltimore Ravens will suck in 2008. Steve McNair, who was a shell of his former self the last couple years, hung it up, leaving the failed Kyle Boller and the unproven Troy Smith and Joe Flacco to battle for the starting QB position.

They face something like a dozen 2007 playoff teams during a daunting upcoming schedule. And they now are going to have to do so without left tackle Jonathan Ogden, who will announce his retirement on Thursday.

I had the Browns pegged for anywhere between four and six wins this season – I’d shoot for the lower end of that now with Ogden retiring. He also had slipped with physical issues at the end of his career, but he still on experience alone was among the top left tackles in the league.

The line is of lesser quality, the quarterbacks have potential but little experience and the defense largely is aging. That’s not a good combo – if I were in Vegas I’d have the Ravens in my top two or three guesses to have the top pick in the 2009 NFL draft.

Vegas, Baby

Things have definitely been slow around here, lately–largely due to the offseason doldrums that are going on right now (no matter how we try, we just can’t bring ourselves to write extensively about OTAs and arrest reports.

But today we get to break out the one area we haven’t really talked about much on ZoneBlitz–’cause we’re on our way to Vegas.

It’s a little early to be thinking too much about NFL betting, but we figured we’d throw down at least a couple of futures bets on the Super Bowl.

At 30/1, the hometown Vikings are looking like one interesting bet. And if the Jags and Chargers are still at 10/1, they might be intriguing options, although I’m not convinced of either’s defense.

As for super sleepers, seems like every year I seem to think the Cardinals (45/1) are finally going to figure it out, and without looking up any of their offseason moves, it seems to me like the Panthers (60/1) had a decent offseason.

Here are the current 2009 Super Bowl odds we’ve been working off of (as of May 7, at least)–so, we’ll put this out there for any readers–what do you think are some good bets? Post them below, and we’ll let you know what we decide on.