Some hard-working people never get the recognition or respect that is truly deserved. It might be a maid, a mailman or a mechanic. It also could be a blue-collar quarterback such as Ben Roethlisberger.
Matt Youmans
Thirty-eight bowl games are on the schedule, and picking winners might be tougher than making Nick Saban smile. The Alabama coach is absolutely great at what he does, which is frown all the time and win a lot of football games.
On any given Sunday, there is a quarterback who flops so miserably that he gets mocked by everyone on Monday. But never is Aaron Rodgers that guy.
The Atlanta Falcons are in position to win the NFC South, one of the most pathetic division races in NFL history. The Falcons, 5-8 overall and 4-0 within the division, sit atop the pile and stink a little less than the other three teams.
Maybe the price tag attached to Jon Lester was too high, but that’s irrelevant. It’s only money, and the Chicago Cubs have plenty more of it. Timing is what matters, and in this case it’s perfect.
All sorts of problems have surfaced for the Seattle Seahawks this season, but quarterback Russell Wilson never has been one. Even when the team was fraying around the edges, Wilson was smooth.
It’s appropriate Marcus Mariota wears green, because the Oregon quarterback is a money player. He will earn a lot of it in the NFL, where he could start for about 10 teams this weekend.
If the game is replayed in two months, the stakes will be raised, the wagering handle will set a record, and Aaron Rodgers will make the Green Bay Packers the favorites.
It was tough to take the Kansas City Chiefs too seriously last season, even when they kept devouring opponents as quickly as Andy Reid could make a stack of cheeseburgers disappear. But if Reid’s second season as coach has proven something, it’s that his team is a serious contender in the AFC.
Finally, the clumsy and dreadful version of the Dallas Cowboys we expected to see all along showed its ugly face. It was a Thanksgiving Day massacre.
Remember the first week of the NFL season? Tom Brady faded in the Miami heat, and the New England Patriots raised the curtain on their season with a weak opening act.
On the rare occasions when the sun peeks through the clouds here, it never seems to shine on Eli Manning these days. The forecast for this weekend calls for cold temperatures with about a 60 percent chance of another New York Giants loss.
Winds of change could be gusting in Honolulu on Saturday night, when Bobby Hauck, a beleaguered football coach on the hot seat, guides UNLV into one of his biggest games of the season.
A passing of the torch might be occurring with the NFL’s elite quarterbacks as Tom Brady fades into the background and the New England Patriots become yesterday’s news. That was the story in late September, anyway.
A crazy theory recently was floated. The theory, turned into a question, is this: Did coach John Calipari collect so much talent this season that Kentucky might be good enough to beat a bad NBA team?