Billy Paultz Reconsidered

Before the NFC championship game ESPN’s Tom Jackson said that if the Saints didn’t win, Drew Brees would start hearing the “Can’t win the Big One,” thing.

He followed that thought with its perennial modifier: “It’s unfair, but that’s the way it is.”

Good Lord, am I sick of that.

1. By talking about it on ESPN you perpetuate it.

2. Unfair isn’t the right word. Idiotic is. If we’re going to draw grand conclusions about an athlete from one game, shouldn’t how the guy played in that game matter? Trent Dilfer won a Supe. Ben Roethlisberger won one in which he played as badly as he ever has.

Obviously, the Ravens and Steelers won those Supes in spite of, not because of, their QBs. How can that not matter to people?

If those examples don’t pull you, how about the case of John Elway? By consensus one of the best QBs ever, Elway never won the Big One until the end of his career, when he was a shell of his former self, but had a defense and running game. The idea that winning that Supe “ratified,” Elway’s career, or even changes anyone’s assessment of him as a player, is beyond nonsense.  Again, you’re assessing a player as if how he played is a secondary issue. Think about how ridiculous that is.

Which brings us, of course, to Peyton Manning. I wrote in Sunday’s blog (see below) that one of the things this Super Bowl was about was whether Manning could arrive on the Mount Rushmore of American team sports (alongside only, I’d argue, Michael Jordan and Joe Montana, and I’m not even sure about Montana) as guys who were so good and so important to their teams that if they were at their best their team would win the championship no matter what, and such great competitors, so mentally tough, that they’d always be at their best when the championship was on the line.

The answer, of course, is no. Manning did not make Mount Rushmore. A better question:

Is the Colts’ post-season performance in the Manning era a blemish on his career?

There’s been predictable piling-on in this regard in the past 48 hours or so. The “Peyton Manning Face” has made an utterly contrived reappearance thanks to ESPNs Bill Simmons. There was a Manning trashing in Monday papers by the consistently over-the-top Jason Whitlock, in which he said, “No way Brady, Montana or Elway throws the Favrelike interception Manning uncorked Sunday night”

Way, Jason. Brady’s pick that sealed the Colts’ defeat of the Pats in the 2006 AFC champ game was effectively identical to “the Favrelike interception Manning uncorked Sunday night.”

Having said all that, though, I think the answer to the bold-faced question above is yes. Not because of the 9-9 postseason record, but because of how he played in those games, in many of which, honestly, the Colts were probably the better team.

Even in the ‘07 Super Bowl win, he threw for just 6.5 yards per try and a modest 81.8 QB rating. His career QB rating is a little over 10 points worse than his regular-season mark.

It’s not that Manning choked Sunday. In fact, his performance against the Jets two weeks previous, in a much more chokeable situation that Sunday (down 10 points, against a better defense, in a game the Colts “couldn’t” lose…), was what led me to believe Manning might be ready to sit for his bust on Rushmore.

Ask yourself this: If the Colts had won Sunday, regardless of how Manning played, and Chris Berman and Steve Young and Jackson were at their little desk on the field breaking it all down afterward, would the, “Is Manning the best ever?” question have come up?

Of course it would. The media would be ready to anoint Manning now. Again, regardless of how he played Sunday.

5:20 p.m.- We’re about an hour away from Supe XV-whatever the hell. Live from the living room at the Gross family compound. We’re watching the LA Open because my dad is here and he’s all about golf, and because there’s only so much pre-game hype/analysis/color/pageantry/Shannon Sharpe’s necktie a body can stand.

I had a column on Peyton Manning in today’s paper. Since it was on 1A, not the sports section, I got away a little from the football dynamic expressed well the other day by Bill Simmons:

“If you’re trying to talk yourself into the Saints on Sunday, you keep coming back to one question: “Has Manning reached that hallowed MJ/Montana/Bird/Federer ‘Don’t Bet Against Me, It’s Just a Bad Idea’ level?” ‘

I don’t know that I’d include Federer in there, but that, to me, is what today is about.

5:41 - Fact I find surpassingly strange: James Brown went to Harvard.

5:50- JB Holmes, a Kentucky boy who looks like he’d be more at home at a tractor pull than at Riviera Country Club (and who has a “Yum: Taco Bell” logo on his shirt), is in the last group at the LA Open. Holmes is a bomb-and-gouge guy who hits it three miles and pretty much muscles his way around the course. About a half-hour ago Johnny Miller said of Holmes, ”I never see him hit a really pure shot.”

So Holmes is on a 590 par-5 and he hits driver and an absolutely flushed hybrid that flies to about three feet from the jar and stops dead. Kick-in eagle. A really, really, really pure shot. Nobody calls Miller on it. 

6:05- Steve Stricker won the golf tournament, and is now No. 2 in the world behind that sex addict, who’s been a stationary target for a while now.

6:08 - The teams are introduced not individually player-by-player (that’s good) but accompanied by an inexplicable video montage of players saying stuff, but with the sound deliberately cut, so you can’t hear what they’re saying. That’s not good.

6:22- Was pretty sure the computer ate my live blog for a minute there…. Only major problem with the Dwight Howard-Bron Bron-Larry Bird commercial is Howard’s plausability as a balletic dunker.

How has Carrie Underwood won five Grammys? She’s 17 years old.

6:27- Hall of Famer John Randle and actor Michael Clarke Duncan (”The Green Mile”)… Separated at birth?

6:30- First play, utterly conventional 2-yard run. As a little kid I remember being stunned, when the Supe actually started, that it really was just going to be another football game.

6:33- Not a big fan of the low-percentage pass on third-and-2. Saints, who are plainly the in-effect home team, go three and out.

6:38- Manning’s hit 4 of his first five, nothing big. No big pressure on him. No blitzes yet. Somebody, can’t remember who, predicted Saints would be conservative on D early, crank it up later.

6:40- Jim Caldwell trying to be second rookie coach to win a Supe. The other? George Seifert. The common thread? Sparkling, utterly dynamic personalities and, I’m guessing, a love for musical theater.

6:42- Betty White gets pancaked for Snickers. Nice. Abe Vigoda is dead, right?

(No, Abe Vigoda is alive, about to turn 89. That was in the Godfather, that he got killed.)

6:52- Thanks Doritos! I never saw an obnoxious little kid before…that should move some foul-smelling chips.

6:54- Saints pin Colts deep, now getting some heat on Manning…

So they run the ball against a three-man front. First down.

6:58- Two prop bets in which the over seemed like locks - number of Katrina references and Eli Manning sightings, both 2 1/2, might be in trouble.

7:01- Colts run it and run it and then- Manning over the top to Garcon. 10-0.

7:03- The wife and kids come home talking about a cool Doritos commercial involving a dog and a no-bark collar…. Somehow I missed it. My Dad, who misses about two-thirds of everything that goes on, saw it…. My LSD years may be catching up with me.

7:06- Bud Light must be stopped. Let’s boycott it, America. Seriously.

Way too much yelling in the commercials to this point.

First quarter, all Colts, although Marques Colston’s drop was pretty big.

7:11- Great throw by Brees and grab by Colston. Then Kim Kardasian’s boyfriend for eight yards. Maybe we’re getting somewhere.

(Was the late hit a good call? Did he even hit him?)

Saints are rolling now, although it feels like they may already have spotted the Colts too much. Dwight Freeney seems OK…..

7:17- OK, Freeney seems better than OK. Big, big sack, and Saints settle for FG.

Good God- expand the boycott to all Anheuser-Busch products…. Ben Gross: “Yeah, they’re gonna have to be stopped.”

It’s free pants, people.

7:20- Joe Addai looks quick, doesn’t he? I’ve seen this before, or thought I did, the two-week break before a Supe energizing a guy. John Elway, for example.

The BPR jinx- Now Addai looks hurt.

7:27- Saints moving again. Seems like we haven’t seen Manning for half an hour. Noise in the stadium seems at Apollo lift-off levels. Saints wouldn’t be much more obviously the home team in the Superdome.

7:32- Brees to Colston to the Indy 3. Colts’ D seems confused.

Phil Simms makes a good point- Colts haven’t seen a good passer for a while, except in practice.

7:34- Power sweep to the 1. Saints should be able to do that a lot.

7:37- “CSI: Outer Space” It had to happen eventually.

7:38- Sean Payton is considered perhaps the best play-caller among NFL coaches, but I’m not sure he’s having a great night- the Saints should be able to power-sweep it all night against a small, quick defense.

My sense is that Gary Brackett, a free agent, could help the Eagles a little.

Commercials now taking a misogynistic turn…. Jim Nantz urging some fictional poor-sap husband to “take that skirt off,” by buying a personal TV.

Didn’t like the Saints call on fourth-and-goal, but didn’t like the Colts’ call on third-and-one, either. Now the Saints won’t have to do that much to cap the half with a field goal

7:45: The FG is good, and it’s 10-6 at the half. 

How can two great QBs play fairly well and combine for just 16 points? My sincerest wish for all BPR readers is that you didn’t take the over.

7:52- CBS guys debating Saints going for that late fourth-and-1… You can and should question the play call, but as for the decision to go for it, the point being missed is that it worked- the Colts pinned at their own 1 couldn’t run their stuff, had to punt, and the Saints got the field goal anyway. If they kick it on fourth-and-1 and make it, then they kick off to Manning with over a minute left and he goes to work.

8:30- Just back from running my Dad home- caught the onside kick but not the touchdown. Obviously the Saints have made the game about keeping the ball out of Manning’s hands, and it’s working.

Didn’t realize until the replay how badly the Colt who had the onside kick go right at him butchered it, lunging way too early and having the ball bounce off his head. Also didn’t realize that Colt was Playboy Playmate husband and ex-Eagle Hank Baskett.

As for The Who at halftime- my general feeling about musical performance during sports events is that it works as well as a football scrimmage would at a rock concert. The Who is a terrific band with plenty of the appropriate rave-up material. They were good, and it was presented pretty well (no bussed-in pretend fans, thank God) but for me they didn’t quite transcend the badness of the idea. U2 at the post-9/11 Supe remains the only group to do that.

8:38- Colts score quick to lead 17-13, and there’s a Manning family sighting. Looked pretty easy. Now you know why they wanted to keep the ball out of Manning’s hands. And Dallas Clark’s. And Joseph Addai’s. Tempo’s picking up, to say the least.

8:48- The Super Bowl seems like a highly chokable situation for a kicker, so give this Saints’ guy credit. 17-16. Really good football game, by the way- no turnovers, minimal penalties, no pass interference silliness…. long way to go, of course.

Don’t know about you, by I’m on pins and needles about this Taco Ball-Chuck Barkley-NBA box thing…

9:00- Manning to Wayne to convert a fourth-and-two. Colts are really conscious of covering up the ball. So far it’s working.

For all the things the Colts do well on offense, screen passes aren’t one of them. The Saints are playing like they know they’re the underdog, but a really smart, tough underdog, and it’s looking more and more like their night.

9:10- Saints on the march. Colts D started to look tired. Haven’t heard from Dwight Freeney this half….

Brees to Shockey in traffic to put the Saints up 22-17. Phenomenal effort by Lance Moore on the 2-pt conversion, and has there ever been a better endorsement of replay? In fast motion, looked like there was no way he caught it and crossed the plane.

The commercials, for me, are now just one big high-def blur… The only one that impressed me was the one for Google, and that wasn’t flashy, just an intelligent case for the product. Imagine that. And have there ever been so many network promos? Did they have trouble selling conventional ads?

Drew Brees has completed 32 passes. No matter what happens from here on out, he’s more than passed this test.

9:19- Colts on the march….

9:24- Charles Barkley - the male Oprah Winfrey - for Taco Bell along with, um.. Lamar Odom? What the…

9:26- Wow. Pick-6. It’s over, apparently. It’s just one play, but Manning wasn’t as good as usual on this night, and no team has ever relied so utterly on one player. Unless he has a miracle up his sleeve….

9:40- NOW it’s over. Happily, Tom Benson has long since scrapped the umbrella dance. Drew Brees- 32 of 39, zero turnovers. And he was the QB who adjusted better, figured out what was available, as the game wore on. The onside kick, the humonguous interception, the unpredictable game-changing stuff, all went the Saints’ way. No question they deserved it.

One more thing- People are gonna talk about the onside kick, but Sean Payton going for that fourth down near halftime was gigantic. If they kick a field goal there, give Manning the ball back and the Colts score a TD, it’s 17-6 and maybe the game’s over.

So, what do we take from this?

One big thing: Peyton Manning is a great, great football player, but this was too winnable a game for losing it to not damage his resume. The bar is insanely high. You can’t put him in the Jordan/Woods/Montana club. You just can’t.  

Oh, and boycott Anheuser-Busch products. That must happen. Can’t stress it enough.

Peace out.

Super (Bowl) Blog. This is just my feeble way of pointing out that I’ll be live-blogging for the Super Bowl and surrounding hoo-ha tomorrow from the couch at the palatial Gross estate. There could also be tweeting @Mikegrss.

Don’t even try to tell me you’re not excited.

He’s 15 now, theoretically less than a year away from driving a car. Good God.

His mother asked him to write down a few things he’d be interested in receiving as gifts, and he took it, as he pretty much does everything, as an opportunity for parody.

He asked for a bazooka, a boob job and, my personal favorite, “Something to make the voices stop.”

Penn State has essentially held the line on football ticket prices 2010, and seems pleased with itself, based on the press release:

“With the recently announced changes related to the Seat Transfer & Equity Plan going into place in 2011, we wanted to provide Penn State fans information on what to expect for 2010 as early on as we could,” explained Greg Myford, Associate Athletic Director for Business Relations & Communications. “We’re pleased that our season ticket holders, including the students, won’t see an increase for the coming year.”

Translation: We’ve annoyed our fans enough with this new thing we’re doing next year, so we’d better not really piss them off.

Season ticket holders will pay $55 per game, $29 per game for students, exactly the same as last year. In fact, the total outlay per ticket holder will be less, since Penn State has seven home games this season, and had an absurd eight last year.

Individual single-game tix will go for $67, up $3 from last year. No biggie, especially since there are over 93,000 season-ticket holders, meaning there just aren’t a ton of individual tickets available.
 

Allen Iverson is going to start in the NBA all-star game even though he doesn’t always start for his own (remarkably bad) team.

This has elicited the predictable outrage (”No way HE’s an all-star!”) and populism (”You’ve got to give the people what they want.”).

What nobody mentions is the impact the Internet has had on voting for all-star teams in all sports. It’s just too easy for the voting to be skewed by get-a-lifers in their underwear, on their couch, punching in Tracy McGrady’s (or whomever’s) name over and over for hours, breaking only for bong hits and Tastykakes.

In short, it’s not at all clear that the results of modern fan voting are indeed what the people, at least the tethered-to-reality majority of people, want.

Not sure what to do about it, but there has to be a way to get closer to a one-fan, one-vote ideal. In the 1980s, Bill James suggested changing baseball’s all-star voting by creating voting precincts, one for each major-league city, with all votes counting only toward the precinct total. First place in each precinct would be worth 16 points (in the NL, 14 in the AL), second place worth 15, third place 14 and so on.

Think about that a while, and you realize the problems it would solve. In short, it’d eliminate, or severely minimize, the bong-hits-and-Tastykakes vote.

I’m not sure if the Internet would make administrating a precinct system easier or harder. Harder, probably.

No matter what, it’s ridiculous to blame the fans for this. If the people running the election make no effort to ensure its legitimacy, do you blame the voters?

The more I think about letting Cliff Lee go, the more awful it seems.

Consider that Lee was making $8 million, and signed through the 2010 season. And the club signed Joe Blanton the other day to a three-year, $24 million deal. That’s right math fans, an average of $8 million a year.

Lee was dealt to Seattle for three prospects. The Phils could surely have traded Blanton for a prospect (this is not anti-Blanton; he’s pretty good, and teams love inning-eaters). There’s no question that if Lee pitches next year the way he did for the Phils, he’ll be in line for a CC Sabbathia-type deal. If that’s the case, fine. Let Lee walk, and the Phils would receive, in compensation, two prospects.

So they trade Lee and sign Blanton and get three prospects. Let’s call that Plan A. Or (Plan B)  they trade Blanton and keep Lee and get… three prospects.

Ruben Amaro’s response to this would no doubt be that all prospects aren’t equal, that there’s no way the prospects in Plan B would compare to the ones in Plan A. Maybe. But the prospects the Phils got were all in class A last year. Realistically they’re all three years from the big leagues at best.

The prospects from Plan B would be whatever you get for Blanton, plus a first-rounder from whichever club signs Lee for 2011 and a sandwich pick from that team, between the first and second round.

A team that signs a Type A free agent (which Lee would be barring collapse) gives its top draft pick to the club that the player is leaving; that club also receives a supplemental pick in the “sandwich” round between the first and second rounds.

Are you telling me that, on paper - which is all we have on these prospects this far out - Plan A blows away Plan B? I don’t see it.

Another thing Plan B has going for it, of course, is the difference between Cliff Lee and Joe Blanton.

.. here’s a healthy dose of rationality on the underwear bomber from Fareed Zakaria.

You all know Roger Ebert, the Chicago film critic of ”Siskel and Ebert,” fame.

I’ve always felt his movie reviews were OK-to-good, entertaining in a very mainstream way, but it turns out his mind and sensibility are an incredibly perfect match to the sort of meandering, personal-journal style of writing blogging can promote.

You may not know that a long battle with cancer has cost him the ability to speak, eat or drink. Somehow that’s made him a better writer. I’m serious.

Anyway, the blog he’s been doing, here, is just astounding. Can’t recommend it more highly.

Sports Illustrated’s Andy Staples has next year’s college football top 25 here. He says the Big Ten will be “the deepest in years,” and has four of its teams in the top 12, with Penn State 12th.

It’s unfair to expect total internal consistency with a list like this, but it would be all but impossible for the season to actually play out that way. If Penn State loses just to teams ranked above it (No. 1 Alabama, no. 3 Ohio State, No. 5 Iowa and no. 10 Wisconsin are all on its schedule) it would be at best 8-4 and not No. 12 in the country. Of course, if the Lions beat any of those four, the beaten team(s) won’t be ranked that high.