Sports Then and Now

Kobe Bryant scored a team-high 20 points to lead the Lakers to their sixth win during a seven game road trip.

The defending NBA Champion Los Angeles Lakers landed their fifth straight win after they rallied from an early deficit to beat the Toronto Raptors 120-110 to complete a grueling seven game road trip.

LA failed to get the upper hand in the early exchanges as the Canadian side took a six point lead after the first period at the Air Canada Centre.

However, those following the “Livescores” note that the Lakers dominated the second quarter in which they scored 29 points, almost doubling the score of their opponents.

After that period the Lakers never looked like giving up the lead and with some good performances on the bench they looked strong in the second half.

Andrew Bynum is starting to put in the type of performances that impressed many before his offseason operation on a knee injury.

LA’s guard Kobe Bryant was his side’s top points scorer as he notched up 20 points and will undoubtedly get the headlines.

However the Spaniard, Pau Gasol, picked up 19 points of his own and aided with four assists. Lakers head coach Phil Jackson was pleased with his squad’s victory as they recorded their seventh win against the Raptors in their last eight meetings. Read the rest of this entry →

Flash also sign US National Team Midfielder Yael Averbuch

The Western New York Flash added another new part in Swedish star Caroline Seger.

The Western New York Flash of Women’s Professional Soccer have announced they have acquired Caroline Seger from Philadelphia in exchange for WNY’s first pick in the second round in the 2011 WPS Draft and first pick in the second round in the 2012 WPS Draft. In addition, the Flash also agreed to terms with US National Team midfielder Yael Averbuch. These acquisitions are strong additions to the Flash midfield as the expansion side continue to build their squad for the 2011 season.

Seger, the Swedish National Team Captain, comes to WNY with vast professional and international experience. Seger is recognized as one of the top female players in the world, evidenced by her recent nomination for the 2010 FIFA Womens World Player of the year. The winner will be announced in January 2011. Seger has been a member of the Swedish National Team since 2005, and boasts over 45 caps for her country. Seger has competed at the 2007 FIFA World Cup and 2008 Olympic Games. At the club level, Seger was an integral member of the Philadelphia Independence in their inaugural year where they reached the WPS Championship game, eventually falling to Champions FC Gold Pride. Seger appeared 18 times for the expansion side in their tremendous run to the Championship match, logging over 1500 minutes and 1 goal and 5 assists. Before being drafted in the 1st overall pick in the International draft, Seger was captain and crucial member of Linkopings FC in the Swedish Damallsvenskan. During her tenure with Linkopings, Seger was named Damallsvenskan Rookie of the Year in 2005 and Midfielder of the Year in 2006 along with three Swedish league titles. Read the rest of this entry →

Peyton Manning led the Colts past Jacksonville, but they have to win their final two games to reach the playoffs.

With just two weeks remaining in the NFL regular season, there are still 20 teams which could conceivably end up winning the Super Bowl. Although this obviously shows just how competitive the NFL is, and more importantly how exciting the NFL can be, the fact remains that certain teams are still in a much better situation than others as they seek to reach the playoffs.

Super bowl betting pundits note that the Indianapolis Colts, despite enjoying a stellar season last year, are struggling to make the play-offs this time around after enduring a mixed season that has seen them hold an 8-6 record. As a result of this, the Colts know that their hopes of making at least the playoffs this season rest almost entirely on their star quarterback Peyton Manning displaying a run of top level performances for the rest of the regular season.

Contrast this to the predicament facing the Jets, had enjoyed a brilliant start to the season only to see their hopes of grabbing the AFC East crown dashed after they failed to maintain their form when it came to the crunch, leaving them destined for a wild card spot.

However, the most exciting division according to those looking at the Super Bowl betting odds regularly (despite the poor level of football that has been on show this season) has clearly been the NFC West, which could end the season with the division champion experiencing a season that falls below the .500 mark which is normally the minimum requirement for reaching the playoffs.

Whoever ends up making the playoffs this season, the one thing that is for certain is that it is going to take a massive change in form for either the New England Patriots or the Atlanta Falcons not to end the season contesting the Super Bowl.

DeSean Jackson completed the latest Philadelphia Eagles comeback win over the New York Giants with a 65-yard punt return.

The game may not have been played at the original Meadowlands, but the shocking late rally on Sunday afternoon by the visiting Philadelphia Eagles over the New York Giants proves that the new Meadowlands still is a place where the Eagles can perform miracles.

After taking a 24-3 halftime edge and scoring a touchdown to take a 31-10 lead with 8:43 remaining in the game, it looked like the Giants would make their first game against the Eagles in the new stadium a statement victory.

However, anyone who ever saw Eagles-Giants games at the old Meadowlands knows that when the Eagles come to visit strange things can happen.

Michael Vick tossed two touchdown passes and ran for another in just over six minutes of game time to tie the contest at 31-31 with 1:24 remaining.

The Giants had one final chance, but were unable to move the ball and punted to the Eagles with 14 seconds remaining.

It looked like overtime was inevitable, especially when punt returner DeSean Jackson mishandled the line-drive punt from rookie Matt Dodge. However, Jackson instead became the latest Eagle to break the hearts of Giants fans with an electrifying 65-yard return to complete the comeback and give Philadelphia the inside edge to winning the NFC East.

It is the most recent in a series of Philadelphia miracles that began with the original “Miracle at the Meadowlands” on November 19, 1978. In that game, the Giants led 17-6 entering the fourth quarter and had the ball and a 17-12 lead in the final minute.

Needing simply to take a knee and run out the clock, quarterback Joe Pisarcik instead tried to hand the ball off to Larry Csonka. The ball fell to the turf and bounced nicely into the hands of Herm Edwards, who took it 26 yards for the game winning score. Read the rest of this entry →

The Vikings will be playing their first outdoor game since the days of Metropolitan Stadium.

The final home game of the 50th season for the Minnesota Vikings will be a cold “blast from the past” as the recent deflation of the roof at the Metrodome means the Vikings and Chicago Bears will be clashing Monday night outdoors at the University of Minnesota’s TCF Stadium.

From their creation in 1961 through the 1981 season the Vikings played all their home games outdoors at Metropolitan Stadium.  During that time, there were a plethora of frozen memories as the Vikings enjoyed significant success playing on their frozen tundra.

Overall, the Vikings were 91-56-4 at Metropolitan Stadium during the regular season and 7-3 on the frozen turf during the post season.

When the Vikings played their first game at Metropolitan Stadium on September 21, 1961 they showed signs of what was to come as they surprised the veteran Chicago Bears 37-13 behind the four-touchdown passes thrown by rookie quarterback Fran Tarkenton.

The Vikings were 15-26-1 during their first six seasons playing at Metropolitan Stadium under head coach Norm Van Brocklin and overall posted just one winning season. However, once Bud Grant arrived in 1967, the team soon started to develop into one of the elite teams in the league and Metropolitan Stadium was an important component of that success.

In 1969 the Vikings were a perfect 7-0 at home during the regular season and then won consecutive cold weather playoff games over the Los Angeles Rams (23-20; 10 degrees, -1 wind chill) and Cleveland Browns (27-7; 8 degrees, -6 wind chill) to reach the Super Bowl for the first time. Read the rest of this entry →

Neither Chan Gailey or Ryan Fitzpatrick was the first choice of Buffalo fans, but they could end up being the right fits.

Here in Buffalo, Monday morning quarterbacking has become the dominant sport, since what happens on the gridiron and on the ice isn’t close to what it used to be in this town. The big fear, especially where the Bills are concerned, is that it won’t be like that again.

I define “Monday morning quarterbacking” broadly for purposes of this discussion, to include prescribing and second guessing personnel decisions as well as game day decisions. Once the woebegone era of Dick Jauron finally ended, there was a flurry of wishful speculation about somehow acquiring a marquis coach and a marquis quarterback. When the dust all settled and we had Chan Gailey as our coach and nobody new as our quarterback, the “nabobs of negativism,” to quote Spiro Agnew, were burning up the airwaves and the blogosphere.

How quickly things change. Today I saw a tweet that said, “Remember when we wanted Mike Shanahan as a coach and Donovan McNabb as our quarterback?”

And there you have it. When a crisis comes, we humans are always inclined to fight the last war, whether it is literal war, or the symbolic kind waged in arenas. Truth is, if we were to analyze the success rate of big name coaches or players reborn or recycled in new venues, especially when the new assignment is a losing franchise, it is more bust than boom. Even the big Tuna, Bill Parcells couldn’t match his New England success in Dallas and couldn’t match his lesser Dallas success in Miami.

The problem—or opportunity, depending on how you see it—is, that most of the best coaches in the NFL come up through the coordinator ranks. More often than not they have been the understudy to a great coach, but not always. Read the rest of this entry →