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NFL Playoffs--Chiefs Again, Super Rematch, Announcers; Pete Returns; Keys to Success; Warriors' Woes; DC Poaching; Trump's First Week

Now that the college football season is over, our main focus has turned to the NFL and the NBA. Last weekend featured the NFC and AFC Championship games.


Some observations,

  • Jayden Daniels, the presumptive NFL Rookie of the Year, led the Commanders to an upset win over Detroit in the Divisional Round when the Lions turned the ball over five times. Ironically, his team was also undone by turnovers--four of them, to be exact--in a 55-23 loss to the Eagles.

  • Three of the lost fumbles led to Philadelphia touchdowns, and that essentially decided the game. The Eagles scored seven rushing touchdowns--three by Saquon Barkley, three by quarterback Jalen Hurts and one by rookie Will Shipley.

  • Barkley, the New York Giants' castoff who's had an incredible year, broke loose for a 60-yard TD on the Eagles first play from scrimmage and never looked back.


  • A dream Chiefs-Bills matchup between two of the best quarterbacks in the NFL--Patrick Mahomes and Josh Allen (above)--didn't disappoint. The Chiefs prevailed 32-29, and Mahomes' legs were as much of a factor as his arm.

  • He rushed for two touchdowns, five key first downs, and proved again that he always finds a way to win. Incredibly, Mahomes has led Kansas City to the AFC Championship game in each of his seven years as a starter.

  • The Chiefs have now won an astounding 17 straight one-score games.

  • The Bills' were just as good, but a stubborn desire to send Allen up the middle on several fourth and ones proved their undoing. The QB sneak failed three times and the last one--at the Chiefs' 40 with the Bills holding a one-point lead--turned out to be the difference in the game. Mahomes quickly led his team to the game-winning field goal.

  • There's been some debate on social media, but from this vantagepoint, Allen looked short of the line to gain.

  • The Super Bowl will be a re-match of the game two years ago, won 36-33 by the Chiefs. Let's hope for another nail-biter this time.

  • If the Chiefs prevail, it'll be the first three-peat in NFL history.

  • I still can't get comfortable with Tom Brady. When I listen to him and Kevin Burkhardt, I long for Greg Olsen, who should be the No. 1 Fox analyst. 

  • The CBS team of Jim Nantz and Tony Romo is still my favorite. They met the moment in the Chiefs-Bills classic, with several on-point insights from Romo and the always steady and classy work of Nantz.


Carroll Returns: The eternally young Pete Carroll, now 73 years of age, was hired a few days ago to coach the Las Vegas Raiders. Carroll led the Seattle Seahawks to a Super Bowl win, and should've had another one if he just handed Marshawn Lynch the damn ball down at the goal line. 


In my book, this is a brilliant hire by the Raiders. Carroll is a master of creating a winning culture and a positive atmosphere. He has won 181 games in nis career, more than the last 14 Raiders' coaches combined (thank you to the Athletic's Mike Sando).


Carroll's last game as a college coach was our 2009 Emerald Bowl, when he led the USC Trojans to a 24-13 victory over Boston College. He was a kick to work with, always engaging, always upbeat, always grateful. And always late.


Keys to Success: Sixteen years after she burst on the scene as a child prodigy, America's Madison Keys stunned world No. 1, Belarusian Aryna Sabalenka, to win the Australian Open. It was the first Grand Slam title for Keys, who hadn't even played in a Grand Slam Final since 2017. She also had to beat No. 2 Iga Swiatek from Poland.


Warrior Blues: Tough to watch Steph Curry and the Golden State Warriors' struggles the last few months after a 12-3 start. Curry is fighting a sprained thumb, and his running mate Draymond Green has been out much of the season with injuries.


Can the Warriors win one more before the Curry window closes? Very doubtful. There's simply too much young talent in the league. The Warriors have lots of pretty good players, but it's hard to win with one superstar and an 11-man rotation of role players.


The one other player with star potential, Jonathan Kuminga, was just coming into his own when he suffered a bad ankle sprain. He's missed 11 games and may be out another three-four weeks, by which time the Dubs may be out of the running for a playoff berth. 


DC Poached: One quick item about college football. Penn State has hired Ohio State's Jim Knowles as defensive coordinator, less than a week after Knowles helped the Buckeyes win the national championship. The Nittany Lions will reportedly pay Knowles $3.1 million per year. The poor dude was only making a little over $2M in Columbus.


There's a lot of poaching going on. Penn State had previously lost its own defensive coordinator, Tom Allen, to Clemson. Meanwhile, in the days after losing the national championship game, Notre Dame has lost its DC, Al Golden, to the Cincinnati Bengals, and its general manager, Chad Bowden, to USC.


It wasn't that long ago that offensive and defensive coordinators had salaries in the mid-hundred thousands and the position of GM didn't even exist on campuses.


As we've been saying, college football is now pro football 2.0, and it's reflected in the compensation being paid to head coaches, assistant coaches, general managers and players.


White House Follies: We were going to lay off President Trump for awhile, in hopes that he might prove us wrong and do something for the benefit of our country, but unfortunately, his first week back in the White House turned out to be an astonishing display of ignorance, petty vindictiveness, bigotry, and dishonesty.


A few of the lowlights:

  • Trump ordered the elimination of birthright citizenship for children born in America to undocumented immigrants or those in the country on temporary visas, a blatantly unconstitutional and racist act.

  • He pardoned all the "hostages" (otherwise known as convicted insurrectionists) who stormed the Capital on Jan. 6 and violently attacked policemen with flagpoles, baseball bats, pepper spray and fire extinguishers. This from the party of law and order.

  • He rounded up thousands of undocumented immigrants, then had them handcuffed and shipped off in military cargo planes to Colombia, Mexico and Guatemala. When Colombia turned the planes back, he threatened to levy taxes of 25%, increasing to 50% after a week, on Colombian goods, quickly establishing that America under Trump will be the world's bully.

  • After promising repeatedly during the campaign to end the war in Ukraine on Day 1, suddenly he's not sure if his buddy, Vladimir Putin, will cooperate.

  • He removed the security details from several defense and intelligence officials who have faced credible death threats, because they had the temerity to criticize him.

  • He announced a joint AI venture with a few of his billionaire buddies, but his co-president Elon Musk admitted, "they don't have the money."

  • He demanded that California "turn the valve" to access more water to fight fires in the LA region and claimed that "you have to clean the floors of the forest." Uh-huh.

  • He threatened to re-take the Panama Canal, falsely claiming that "38,000 Americans died building it" and that "China operates it."

  • While in North Carolina visiting with survivors of Hurricane Helene, he announced his intention to disband FEMA. Nice timing.

  • At the National Prayer Service, the Episcopal Bishop of Washington asked Trump to "have mercy on the people in our country who are scared now." He immediately called her a "radical left hard line Trump hater."

  • He pulled out of the Paris accords because, as all of us know, climate change is a "hoax."

  • He reiterated his intention to prosecute the "vicious", "radical and corrupt" people who opposed him.


It's going to be a long four years.

2 comentarios


Invitado
27 ene

Agree with your opinions, Gary, except the part about Pete "The Cheat" Carroll who can probably never return to the collegiate coaching ranks for the Reggie Bush-related aboimination Pete had to know about, perhaps perpetuated? while at USC that resulted in them getting banned from bowls for several years.

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Gary Cavalli
27 ene
Contestando a

Thanks for your comments. It was a bad look when Pete left USC before the NCAA hammer dropped, to be sure, but Bush's violations seem pretty tame now in the era of NIL. Unfortunately, our bowl suffered from USC's bowl ban when the Pac-12 couldn't field enough bowl-eligible teams to fulfill its commitments.

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Gary Cavalli - Bowl and League co-founder, author, speaker 

Gary Cavalli, the former Sports Information Director and Associate Athletic Director at Stanford University, was co-founder and executive director of the college football bowl game played in the Bay Area, and previously was co-founder and President of the American Basketball League.

Get in touch//@cavalli49//gacavalli49@gmail.com

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