BCS to be reviewed

The best team in the country was???

The Clarion Content was just excoriating the Obama administration last week on our politics page for its failure to object to the merger between two existing harmful monopolies, Ticketmaster and Live Nation. There is better news out of Washington, D.C. today. While the President was courtside watching the Duke game yesterday afternoon, with Veep Joe Biden who looked like he couldn't tell the teams apart without a program, the Justice Department was indicating its preliminary willingness to look into a harmful sports monopoly, the college football Bowl Championship Series (BCS).

The BCS is, of course, prima facie an anti-competitive system. It is deliberately designed to exclude and minimize opportunities for schools not in the six "power" conferences. The BCS worked just as its designers intended this year when it denied undefeated Boise State and Texas Christian a chance to compete for the national title. In fact, it not only excluded these schools from a national title game or any opportunity to play in one, but in a fit of extreme protectionism, it refused to allow them to play any team from the so-called power conferences in a BCS sanctioned bowl.

This behavior is monopolistic and highly objectionable. It would be bad enough if it were perpetrated by a private entity, but coming from an organization that includes many public universities, it is genuinely perverse. We agree, of course, that there are far bigger problems facing the country. However, we are glad to see the Obama administration is at least on the right side of this anti-trust issue. Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich wrote in a letter to Utah Senator Orrin Hatch, a leading rabblerouser on the topic, that, "This seemingly discriminatory action with regard to revenues and access have raised questions regarding whether the BCS potentially runs afoul of the nation's antitrust laws...The administration shares your belief that the current lack of a college football national championship playoff with respect to the highest division of college football ... raises important questions affecting millions of fans, colleges and universities, players and other interested parties."

Is it going anywhere? Probably not, much more likely it is strictly for public consumption, and the Obama folks showed their true colors in raising nary an objection of significance to the merger of Ticketmaster and Live Nation which will raise the already ridiculous prices for concert tickets even higher. The BCS signaled its inclination to continue to ignore any and all objections in a statement released by its chairman, "This letter is nothing new and if the Justice Department thought there was a case to be made, they likely would have made it already."

NFL predictions

After last weekends games the Clarion Content has to say we have never seen a more wide open final eight in our NFL memory. We could make a reasonable case for each of these eight teams to win a Super Bowl. Vegas more or less agrees. The current odds are:

Indianapolis Colts 5 to 2
San Diego Chargers 3 to 1
New Orleans Saints 4 to 1
Dallas Cowboys 5 to 1
Minnesota Vikings 6 to 1
New York Jets 14 to 1
Baltimore Ravens 14 to 1
Arizona Cardinals 20 to 1

The only surprise in that list for the Clarion Content is the Cardinals at longer odds than the Jets, but Vegas is probably comparing their respective defenses.

Since we feel utterly unable to predict the outcomes of this weekends games, we thought we might steer you instead to our favorite sports columnist and his terrific column. Read the talented Bill Simmons on Week Two of the playoffs here.

Lane Kiffin to USC

Who's ready to take on the Trojans?

We could not have said it better than ESPN columnist Pat Forde did, "Paris Hilton has paid more dues than Lane Kiffin."

We are predicting that Lane Kiffin does about as well with USC football as Tim Floyd did with USC basketball. USC Athletic Director, Mike Garrett, can take credit for both hires. For those of you who do not recall, Floyd's Trojans looked good for a minute, making it all the way to the Sweet Sixteen (once). Unfortunately, four years after his arrival Floyd resigned as the head coach, USC vacated its 21 wins from the 2007-08 season, and ordered self-imposed sanctions which included withdrawing from postseason consideration (including the Pac-10 tournament) for the 2009-10 season.

Kiffin leaves Tennessee fourteen months into a five year contract, one game over .500, with a string of "minor" NCAA violations in his wake.

Smooth move, Ex-Lax, errrr, AD Garrett.

Artest struggling

The Clarion Content has been telling you since the beginning of the year that we didn't like the Ron Artest acquisition for the Lakers. We warned that he was a head case waiting to detonate. We had no idea how literally that might be true.

Since Artest took a header down a flight of stairs on Christmas night he has not been the same. Before the injury, he was averaging 12.3 points per game. He missed five games after falling and hasn't cracked double figures in the four games he has played since returning. In his most recent game against the Bucks, he crashed hard to the floor after being fouled by the Bucks Michael Redd less than a minute into the game. An Artest the LA Times called indifferent, managed only two shots on the night and totaled two points. Since being back in the line-up he has averaged less than an assist per game, too. After the Milwaukee outing Phil Jackson was saying maybe Artest needed to have his reexamined.

No joke.

Some good news in Cincinnnati

This left-handed fireballer will be joining the Reds come Spring...

There was some good sports news in Cincinnati this weekend. It surely was not the Bengals who got throttled by the New York Jets for the second week in a row. This loss ended the Bengals best season in a dogs age. No, the good news came from another Cincinnati franchise that has not won anything in what feels like forever, the baseball playing Reds.

Baseball does not have the revenue parity of the NFL so the Reds have a much more uphill climb than the Brown family's Bengals. The Bengals legendary stinginess has hurt them over the years, but is different than the Reds who simply don't have the revenue to compete for the biggest names, which is why this weekend's news came as such a surprise.

Word is that small-market Cincinnati stunned the rest of baseball yesterday by agreeing to a five-year, $30 million deal with Aroldis Chapman, the Cuban left-hander, whose fastball has been clocked near 100 mph. The Reds swooped past amongst others the Boston Red Sox and Toronto Blue Jays for the unproven Cuban fireballer.

There is hope on the Ohio River, even in the middle of this bitterly cold winter. Pitchers and catchers report in less than two months.

Mad Respect

Brandon Roy still winning games for injury plagued Portland

The Clarion Content hasn't seen enough of the Portland Trailblazers to understand truly how they are doing it, but we have to give them mad respect. We must admit when their centers Greg Oden and Joel Przybilla went down with series injuries within days of each other we thought that the Blazers were in trouble. We figured in the ultra-competitive Western Conference, where even presumed scrubs like Memphis and Sacramento are showing resilience and talent, there was no way Portland could hang in there. We were sure they would slowly and steadily fall out of the playoff picture.

Brandon Roy and the rest of the cast have proven us wrong. We are definitely surprised. The Blazers are now seven up and three down in their last ten, including a win last night over the defending champion Lakers. It is not like Oden and Pryzbilla are their only injuries either, Portland is also playing without starting forward Nicolas Batum (shoulder surgery,) Travis Outlaw (broken left foot,) and guard Rudy Fernandez who had to have a back surgery. Seriously.

Who is doing it for the Blazers besides Roy? Would you believe thirty-five year-old former Fab Fiver, Juwan Howard? Howard is averaging nearly 12pts and 7 rebounds per in his last five games. What about straight out high schooler, now twenty-three year-old, Martell Webster? Once the highest NBA draft pick ever assigned straight to the D-League, Webster is only averaging 10.4pts and 4 rebs per on the season, but he has exploded since the big guy's injuries. Webster is averaging 19.2pts and 6+ rebs per in his last five.

Can these cast-offs, along with Andre Miller and Brandon Roy, keep it up and somehow allow injury decimated Portland to stay in the playoff race? The Clarion Content doubts it, but the Blazers have already proven us wrong once this season. Keep your eye on them.

One more note of local interest, the Blazers signed former Dukie Shavlik Randolph to a 10-day contract on Friday.

NFL Notes and predictions

Could this guy win another Super Bowl?

A few NFL quickies to tide you over, dear readers, until this weekend's NFL playoff games. The first is a trend NFL insiders have noted in the last several weeks. The Carolina Panthers hung on to Coach John Fox, the Bears elected to keep Coach Lovie Smith, ditto for the Houston Texans and Gary Kubiak, apparently the Bucs decided not to drop the over-matched Raheem Morris and it is possible even the Cowboys will let Wade Phillips survive. This trend, to allow the lame duck or all but fired coaches to survive, has surfaced suddenly. The NFL is a copycat league. As Clarion Content fave Petros Papadakis would say, "But why?"

The smart money says it is because of money. Once again, it is all about the benjamins. The owners think it is likely or at least quite possible that there will be an NFL work stoppage in 2011. If the owners of these franchises with lame duck coaches and in some cases staffs too, don't can the old guy and hire someone new, they will not be on the hook for any coaching salaries in a year where there may be no or fewer games. Conversely, fire a coach or a staff with more than one year remaining on their contract(s) and an owner might end up paying two coaches or worse two coaching staffs in a year were there is less or no football. Hmmmm. This is not a good sign for fans rooting against a work stoppage that affects the season.

Our second note is much more positive. We have to give a shout out and kudos to Tennessee Titans running back and East Carolina alum, Chris Johnson. Although his team just missed the playoffs thanks to Coach Jeff Fisher obstinent support of Kerry Collins, Johnson became the sixth player in NFL history to rush for 2,000 yards in a season. It is an amazing accomplishment. It is even more impressive set in the context of the team's 0-6 start. Johnson surely didn't get any freebie yards running out the clock in those games. Johnson passed a couple of remarkable Hall of Famers in Week 17. He wiped two of the best of the best from the record books, one of the baddest bruisers ever, and one of the fleetest afoot of all-time.

Johnson broke the franchise rushing record set by the immortal Earl Campbell, 1,934 yards. Forget Adrian Peterson's stiff arms, Campbell was a man amongst men, the single best banging, run directly over you running back in NFL history. Johnson also broke the NFL record for yards from scrimmage, Marshall Faulk's season for the ages, 1999, when he had 2,429 yards from scrimmage. Two totally different styles of back, and Johnson surpassed them both.

Remarkable. Congratulations Chris Johnson!

Our quick NFL predictions for this weekend.

The New York Jets at the Cincinnati Bengals

The Jets killed them in Week 17. The Bengals aren't exactly a veteran, playoff tested team. The Clarion Content sees a lot of things leaning the Jets way, but we can't believe a below-average rookie quarterback is going to win on the road. Sorry Sanchito.

Bengals 17-14.

The Philadelphia Eagles at the Dallas Cowboys

Another rematch of a Week 17 game, the Cowboys shocked the Clarion Content by winning that one. Could they end their long playoff win drought? And save Wade Phillips job? Maybe, but we will have to see it to believe it.

Eagles 30-21.

The Baltimore Ravens at the New England Patriots

The Patriots loss of wideout Wes Welker will be very tough to overcome. He represented 30% plus of Tom Brady's total completions this season. The Pats run defense is suspect. Ravens runner Ray Rice is excellent. It sure is awful tough to take Joe Flacco on the road over Tom Brady. But...

Ravens 24-17

The Green Bay Packers at the Arizona Cardinals

This is the toughest game of the weekend to pick. It is another rematch, the Pack crushed last week when the Cardinals turtled and went totally vanilla. It figures to be a shootout. Both teams have a lot of weapons. If Anquan Boldin plays, we like the Cards for sure. Even without him, we like them a little bit.

Cardinals 38-31

We recommend great caution investing real money in these picks.

Nate gets out of jail

Nate Robinson was finally freed from Mike D'Antoni's doghouse yesterday and he exploded for 41 points and eight assists as the Knicks beat the Hawks in Atlanta in OT. Coach D'Antoni let go his grudge and Robinson blew up. After weeks and weeks of ignoring Nate, he let him play. Robinson had fourteen games in a row of, "Did not play, Coach's decision." D'Antoni had paid no mind to the "Free Nate" chants in the Garden as the Knicks ground out an 8 win and 5 loss December, their best month in ages. But following a defeat at 3 and 30 New Jersey, with no rhyme, reason or explanation Robinson was paroled.

Robinson, one of the Knicks leading scorers last year at 17.2ppg, and their second best player, wasted away while D'Antoni stubbornly played the retread, he'd be a has been, but he's a never was, Larry Hughes. D'Antoni followed this same pattern in Phoenix while he screwed up the peak of Steve Nash's career. He shortened his rotation like he was a Mafia Don and these were the only 6 or 7 guys in the whole world he could trust. At the Clarion Content, we have disliked the D'Antoni hire from the beginning, and we can only hope Nate stays in his good graces. Next up, the Knicks return to the Garden to face the Pacers Sunday.

2009, that's a wrap

2009 was a weird year on a lot of levels. Sports, as so frequently happens, mirrored society. Here is how our favorite sports columnist, Bill Simmons, summed it up, "2009: the year when Kobe and A-Rod led teams to championships, Tiger became a pariah and Norv Turner became a top-five NFL coach."