The Philadelphia Eagles completed one of the most amazing comebacks in NFL history on Sunday, 197downing the New York Giants 38 – 31. The Eagles were down by 21 points in the second half, and turned it on in the fourth quarter. The plays that completed the comeback were several running plays by Michael Vick to lead the tying drive, and the Giants punter failed to put it out of bounds. Big mistake as Desean Jackson took the punt return all the way for a touchdown as time expired. The miscues by the Giants down the stretch have some fans calling for Coughlin’s head, but this team is still poised to make the playoffs. It will be interesting to see how this loss affects them going forward the rest of the season.
The New York Jets erased the horror of the past two weeks by going into Pittsburgh and pulling out a win 22 – 17 over the Steelers. Mark Sanchez played a solid and efficient game while the Jets running game came alive for the first time in several games. It keeps the Jets in the thick of the playoff race, and squashes any concerns that the Sal Alosi sideline tripping incident was going to negatively affect the team. In fact it seemed to have the exact opposite effect with the media commenting that maybe the Jets run a dirty organization, they seemed to use that to get their swagger back. We will see just how good this team is over the next two weeks, and if they can make the playoffs.
The Orlando Magic were spiraling fast losing five of six games on their west coast road trip, which resulted in them falling from second to fourth in the Eastern conference. As a result GM Otis Smith moved fast dealing, Rashard Lewis, Vince Carter, Mickael Pietrus, and Marcin Gortat for Jason Richardson, Gilbert Arenas, Earl Clark, and Hedo Turkoglu. This is an upgrade to the underachieving Magic roster, but the only spot where they need some help after the trade is in the low post. Dealing Gortat and Lewis the Magic are not left with a huge front line, outside of Dwight Howard it gets thin really quickly. There is no doubt the added perimeter scoring will benefit them, but they won’t be able to compete with the Celtics until they find some depth in the paint.
Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban recently commented that he has a plan to personally fund a playoff system in order to do away with the current BCS system used to determine the college football champion. Cuban’s idea makes a lot of sense, but that is just the reason it will probably never come to fruition. The BCS is mostly controlled by one man Jim Delany who is the commissioner of the Big Ten conference, and the BCS could even make more money than it is right now. The reason things are not changing is because Delany’s conference has a business model that thrives better under the current system, so everything is basically self-serving. Maybe someday we will see a playoff in college football, but it won’t be anytime soon as long as Delany is still on the job.
The UCONN women’s basketball team won their 88th straight game, type the record set by the UCLA mens basketball program from 1971 – 1974. They Huskies will take on the Florida State Seminoles next for their shot at breaking the record. UCONN’s coach Geno Auriemma said that people are only playing attention to this because his women’s team is on the cusp of breaking a men’s basketball record, and that if this were a women’s record no one would be paying attention. While what they are about to do is amazing this just proves how uncompetitive women’s basketball has become, the fact that they have beaten their opponents during this streak by an average of 33.6 points per game illustrates that. This will bring some attention to the sport, but will not do much to expand the viewership of women’s basketball as a whole.
