Posted on November 16th, 2015
By DERON SNYDER
LANDOVER, Md. – Fans witnessed an amazing display Sunday afternoon when the Saints came to FedEx Field. The home team welcomed the visitors with excitement and the anticipation paid off with multiple scoring drives and prodigious yardage.
By the time the clock hit 0:00, the scoreboard read Washington 47, New Orleans 14. As the energized crowd exited with giddiness for the second consecutive home game, one conclusion made sense more than any other:
The Saints have an awful defense.
There’s a tendency to overreact in these parts when the team struggles or the quarterback throws two picks or the coach channels Jack Nicholson in “A Few Good Men.” One week, Kirk Cousins is the worst QB to step under center. This week he’ll rank among the greatest of all time; he literally was perfect (in terms of passer rating).
At the risk of being labeled a party-pooper, let me remind you again that New Orleans was the opponent. The Saints are like a magic elixir, good for whatever ails an offense. Washington was so-so entering Sunday but got well in a hurry, scoring on eight of its first nine possessions before punting with 3:38 left in the game.
The final statistics were mind-boggling.
Cousins led the offense to 40 points, throwing for 324 yards. He had four touchdowns, five incompletions and zero interceptions. Halfback Alfred Morris rushed for 92 yards, averaging 6.1 per pop. Halfback Matt Jones caught three passes for 131 yards, including a 78-yard screen for a touchdown. Halfback Chris Thompson rushed for 54 yards … more than the entire team rushed for in any of the last four games.
Thank God for New Orleans.
“We knew we were going to get a heavy dose of the running game,” Saints coach Sean Payton said, “and obviously we didn’t handle it well.” (By comparison, New England coach Bill Belichick knew Washington would try to force a ground attack down the Patriots’ throat, but they yielded a mere 37 yards rushing last week).
Before anyone goes overboard about the fireworks, consider the source. New Orleans lets teams can catch fire easier than match-light charcoal.
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Posted on November 12th, 2015
By DERON SNYDER (as published in The Washington Times)
– “Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.” – Frederick Douglass
At the risk of inciting the crazy separatists who harbor visions of “taking back our country,” I offer the above quote as a reminder. There is no progress without struggle. Only agitation can break stagnation, whether the goal is civil rights, women’s rights, gay rights … or athletes’ rights.
The University of Missouri football team’s protest had nothing to do with NCAA policies, procedures or prohibitions. The players weren’t seeking a more equitable share of the copious loot they generate. They didn’t take a stand for better healthcare after injuries render them useless to schools.
Controlling their likenesses wasn’t on the list of demands. Neither was redefining impermissible benefits nor receiving academic support past their athletic eligibility. No, the team’s threatened boycott wasn’t about them, or athletics, at all.
And that’s why the NCAA should be very, very afraid.
If the Mizzou protest leads to athletes using their leverage in NCAA reform – a battle primarily fought by administrators, lawyers and journalists – there’s no telling how much damage will be inflicted on the billion-dollar college-sports complex.
“If the players don’t play, the pyramids fall,” former Nike and Adidas executive Sonny Vaccaro told Yahoo Sports.
As we saw Monday, when Missouri president Tom Wolfe and chancellor R. Bowen Loftin announced their resignations, athletes have incredible power. Protests amidst racial tensions had engulfed the campus for several weeks, including a hunger strike by one student. But the nation was oblivious until the football team weighed in and drew attention like a Sumo wrestler directing traffic.
It’s a good bet that Wolfe and Loftin would still have their jobs if 32 players hadn’t tweeted their support for the protests. It’s also a good bet that coach Gary Pinkel would have a difficult time recruiting future stars if he had come out against those 32 players. By galvanizing the team and coaching staff – blacks and whites together – Pinkel helped push the movement over the edge with a tweeted photo of unity.
The change they enacted was largely symbolic. The removal of two officials just might lead to substantial measures that address the problems, but that work remains undone. However, any good that follows is undeniably a result of the team’s action, whether you applauded or were appalled.
The cause is easy enough to support, unless you favor racial slurs and swastikas on campus. Finding allies will be more difficult if student-athletes turn their attention inward. Few issues in college sports are as divisive as “pay-for-play” or other forms of compensation beyond a scholarship.
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Posted on November 9th, 2015
By DERON SNYDER
Brave or foolish. Ungrateful or principled. Trailblazers or lemmings.
Athletes or activists.
Your view of the Missouri football team right now has nothing to do with its won-loss record or standing in the Southeastern Conference. The Tigers left the gridiron – breaking away from the chalk lines that determine progress and boundaries – to enter society’s high-speed (and highly charged) rails.
Many fans want sports to serve as an escape, a respite from life’s difficult and challenging day-to-day realities. Just suit up, play ball and shut up; problems can wait until the game is over.
But a number of Missouri’s football players said no, there are troubles that need to be addressed immediately, superseding the need to practice or play sports.
“The athletes of color on the University of Missouri football team truly believe “Injustice Anywhere is a threat to Justice Everywhere,” read a statement Saturday night on Twitter, featuring a photo of 32 players. “We will no longer participate in any football related activities until President Tim Wolfe resigns or is removed due to his negligence toward marginalized students’ experience. WE ARE UNITED!!!!!”
Under pressure from the team, plus a student’s hunger strike, campus organizations, Republican state lawmakers and the Kansas City Star editorial board, Wolfe stepped down Monday during an emergency meeting of the university’s Board of Curators.
“My motivation in making this decision comes from love,” Wolfe announced. “I love M.U. Columbia, where I grew up, and state of Missouri. I have thought and prayed about this decision. It’s the right thing to do.”
As for whether the team did the right thing, man your battle stations.
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Posted on November 5th, 2015
By DERON SNYDER
Let’s give it up for the amazing Washington Nationals, who might be making history in front of our eyes. Perhaps no other franchise in baseball – or any other sport – has pulled off the feat we’ve seen over the last few years.
Think about it. The Nationals have gone from laughingstocks who suffered back-to-back 100-loss seasons, to laughingstocks who captured two division titles in a four-year span. Don’t underestimate the difficulty in remaining a joke after attaining success.
Looks like we had it wrong all along: Winning doesn’t cure everything. And every turnaround isn’t a reversal.
The Nationals don’t deserve Dusty Baker, one of baseball’s classiest and most-respected figures. Bud Black didn’t deserve his treatment by the Nationals, one of baseball’s crassest and most-ridiculed franchises. Baker landed the managerial job but you have to wonder if Black isn’t the true victor.
He doesn’t have to work for an organization that keeps finding new ways to embarrass itself.
Fortunately for the Nats, their on-field product is attractive enough to counterbalance the dysfunctional ownership. At age 66, with 20 years as a skipper and three Manager of the Year awards to his credit, Baker is interested in winning a World Series more than winning at the negotiating table. He’ll be introduced Thursday morning, willing to overlook Washington’s clear disrespect for managers because this team can put a ring on his finger.
He won’t bad-mouth the Nats in public. He’ll say all the right things, how he’s happy to be back in baseball after a three-year absence. How the Nationals are still loaded and should contend for the World Series, despite the expected departure of several key players. How no matter what happened during the hiring process, whether he was the No.1 candidate or runner-up, it’s his job now and he plans to maximize the opportunity.
But surely he’s incredulous – like everyone else – that the club offered Black a one-year contract with a straight face. One year? For a veteran major-league manager?
Novice Matt Williams got a two-year deal. Don Mattingly just signed for four years with the Miami Marlins. Three is normal. Offering a lone year doesn’t express interest, it displays contempt.
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Posted on November 3rd, 2015
By DERON SNYDER
We have seen horrific crashes claim lives in auto racing. We have seen brutal beatings claim lives in boxing. We have seen terrible accidents claim lives in action sports.
One day, we might see a violent collision that claims a life in the NFL.
But if we’re lucky, we’ll just see players who “only” are left paralyzed.
Death and maiming are distinct possibilities in some sports, including football. For several minutes during Sunday’s Cowboys-Seahawks game, we wondered if we witnessed a fatality – all the while praying it was just an injury.
Seattle wideout Ricardo Lockette dropped to the ground like a rag doll and was motionless after Dallas safety Jeff Heath delivered a devastating block during a kickoff return. We would’ve felt so much better if Lockette rolled around in pain or arose and staggered toward the sideline.
Or moved, period.
Instead, he lay lifeless while a bevy of medical staffers attended to him for what seemed like forever. Through the crowd of folks kneeling over him, we focused on his arms and legs, looking for the slightest flex or twitch. We wanted a sign that he was alive and his body still worked (in that order).
Lockette finally obliged, opening his eyes and speaking. He raised his fists while being carted off the field, pointing to fans as they applauded. Taken to a local hospital, he displayed full movement in all extremities.
“I know a lot of guys were really hurting for him, because we didn’t know what was going on,” Seattle wideout Doug Baldwin told reporters after the game. “But we’re thankful he’s OK.”
“OK” is relative. Lockette suffered a sore neck and concussion that could lead to who-knows-what. But that’s better than the fears that invaded our head while he was down and out (unconscious) after the hit.
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Posted on October 26th, 2015
By DERON SNYDER
No one in the NFC East has anything to brag about.
The first-place New York Giants lead the way with a middling 4-3 record. The Philadelphia Eagles are 3-4, struggling to prove that Chip Kelly really is a genius. The locals have yet to win twice in a row this season and face New England in their next attempt.
But at least none of those teams are like Dallas. The Cowboys not only miss their star quarterback (0-3 without Tony Romo), they have to justify their controversial defensive end (0-1 when Greg Hardy goes berserk).
Believers in karma have a new Exhibit A as evidence. In March, Cowboys owner Jerry Jones signed a great talent in Hardy, who already has three sacks in two games played. There’s no question that the 6-5, 280-pound rusher is a disruptive force on the line and a menace to QBs.
However, he previously has been a menace to women and a disruptive force within the Carolina Panthers.
Hardy was convicted in 2014 of domestic assault and communicating threats in a case involving a former girlfriend, who said he threw her on a bed covered with guns and threatened to kill her with one. She was a no-show for his appeal (reportedly paid off) and the charges were dropped, as Hardy was suspended for all but one game last season and the first four games this season.
He has wasted no time drawing negative attention to himself and his new employer, making insensitive comments about “guns a-blazing,” speaking inappropriately about Tom Brady’ wife and, the latest, acting out indefensibly during Sunday’s loss against the Giants.
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Posted on October 22nd, 2015
By DERON SNYDER
Coach Rick Pitino is in a hopeless situation if self-described escort Katina Powell is telling the truth about services she provided for Louisville basketball recruits and players.
Whether he was totally clueless or fully aware, Pitino should be fired if Powell indeed rounded up dancers who did more than strip. Signing off on such parties would be egregious. Being ignorant of the festivities would be an indictment itself.
The worst part if it happened and the head coach didn’t know? An assistant felt comfortable enough in the environment to hire strippers for the cause. Bringing sex workers to the athletic dorm would attest to the culture within Pitino’s program.
Even as he denies any knowledge of the alleged parties, Pitino must know that Powell’s claims make him damaged goods as much as former assistant Andre McGee. This is the second sex scandal during Pitino’s tenure, which includes one he couldn’t deny. He dragged down the school in 2009 when we learned of his restaurant romp with a woman who later extorted him … after he paid for her abortion.
Pitino survived that public shaming and the woman is still serving an 87-month sentence in federal prison. According to Powell, the sex parties began just one year after the tawdry revelations, perhaps not coincidentally as archenemy Kentucky was leaving Louisville behind in terms of profile, victories and recruiting.
McGee played four seasons under Pitino, spent 2010-2012 as a graduate assistant and spent 2012-2014 as director of basketball operations. Pitino signed him as a player and hired him as a staffer, making McGee part of the Cardinals family that celebrated a national title in 2013.
Pitino professes ignorance if McGee paid Powell $10,000 to arrange 20-plus parties from 2010-2014 inside Billy Minardi Hall. “I don’t know if any of this is true or not,” Pitino told Yahoo Sports and ESPN Tuesday afternoon, his program reeling from explosive details in an “Outside The Lines” report that day.
OK. Let’s say he was unaware.
He’s still tone deaf if he doesn’t hear how crazy he sounds.
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Posted on October 19th, 2015
By DERON SNYDER
Dean Blandino has an unenviable job.
On any given Sunday, the NFL vice president of officiating has to explain the unexplainable and defend the indefensible. He has to convince us that our eyes are lying, our common sense is faulty and our comprehension is slow.
Like a crisis PR expert hired by a disgraced public figure, Blandino wore a slight “I-don’t-buy-this-myself” grin Sunday as he peddled dung to save his employer’s face. The veep was at his unbelievable best after an interception by the Chicago Bears was overturned via replay and converted to touchdown for the Detroit Lions.
Golden Tate caught a pass at the half-yard line and broke the goal line’s plane as a defensive back tugged on the ball. It popped out, was batted around in the air and landed in linebacker James Anderson’s arms. The play appeared to a classic case of the Dez Bryant/Calvin Johnson rule, which says some receptions aren’t receptions at all.
We’ve been conditioned by the numerous non-catch catches – Atlanta halfback Devonta Freeman had one for a reversed touchdown against Washington in Week 5 – so no one except Lions fans believed that had Tate scored. Officials on the field ruled the play an interception and a touchback. The game announcers agreed. Fox Sports’ Mike Pereira, formerly head of officiating for the league, thought it was obvious that Tate didn’t transition from receiver to runner and therefore needed to maintain possession until the play was complete.
But just in case the catch/not-a-catch rule wasn’t confusing enough, the replay official added another six layers by overturning the call.
Bring in the mouthpiece.
“This is different than the plays we’ve been talking about, the Dez Bryant play or the Calvin Johnson play,” Blandino said on NFL Network. “This is not a receiver who’s going to the ground. The issue here is, did he become a runner before the ball came loose? Did he have control, both feet down, and then time enough to become a runner after the second foot is down?”
Uh, not conclusively enough to REVERSE the call on the field!
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Posted on October 15th, 2015
By DERON SNYDER
Loving NFL football is easy.
So is hating the NFL.
The league that has everything – a chokehold on our consciousness, a multitude of billion-dollar revenue streams, a waiting list of eager partners and willing advertisers – is never satisfied. The NFL continues to pursue unconquered territories and fight nonexistent threats, almost daring the public to say “Enough already!”
Yet it marches on, the Nothing Funny League, a cold, brutish character that sucks the life from fans aside from the 60-minute contests. Personal seat licenses, unnecessary late games on school/work nights, the local “blackout” rule (suspended this season under pressure), regular ticket prices for irregular, exhibition games … there’s no limit on disdain.
Not even for a measly six seconds.
The NFL isn’t the only sports league to complain about GIFs and Vines, the popular snippets of highlights commonly posted on Twitter and elsewhere. Ultimate Fighting Championship, the Big 12 and the Southeastern Conference have voiced their objections, too. But commissioner Roger Goodell heads the biggest bully in sports, leading the way as Twitter suspended accounts for two high-profile sites Monday.
Deadspin’s Twitter account was reactivated Monday night but the account for SB Nation’s GIF handle was still suspended as of Wednesday evening. The NFL wants everyone to know it’s not at fault.
“The NFL sent routine notices as part of its copyright enforcement program requesting that Twitter disable links to more than a dozen pirated NFL game videos and highlights that violate the NFL’s copyrights,” the league said in a statement. “We did not request that any Twitter account be suspended.”
That wasn’t necessary. Twitter has a deal to distribute highlights and the social media company doesn’t want to upset its partner.
But there’s no reason for alarm on the NFL’s part. The prevalence of quick, video replays don’t dent the league’s bottom line. They don’t hurt The Shield or damage the brand. They simply enhance the experience for fans viewing a second screen – their computer or smart device – while watching the game.
GIFs and Vines create a sense of community for those who aren’t in the stadium. Sort of like the kinship among fans in attendance, minus the price gouging, long lines and drunken brawls.
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Posted on October 13th, 2015
By DERON SNYDER
When the University of Maryland tabbed Randy Edsall as football coach a little less than five years ago, athletic director Kevin Anderson envisioned the new hire taking the Terrapins from good to great.
There’s nothing wrong with ambition. But there’s also nothing wrong with being pretty good, either. That’s a more reasonable and sustainable destination for Maryland football.
The first step is winning consistently, which Edsall pulled off at UConn in going 8-5, 8-5, 8-5 and 9-4 before arriving at College Park. However, the Terps were headed toward their first two seasons under him, 2-10 and 4-8, halfway through this year.
Edsall wasn’t leading Maryland to the next level; he was letting it slip to the subpar levels of old.
“We did not show signs of progress in the way we were losing,” Anderson said at a Sunday news conference announcing Edsall’s dismissal.
To be clear, the manner of defeats mattered as much as the number. Routs were too routine and tight games were spread too far apart.
The Terps have been vanquished by three or more touchdowns in four games this year. Four losses last season were by at least 20 points. In 2013, Maryland suffered five double-digit losses, including three blowouts.
Forget about being good. Being competitive was a struggle for Edsall’s Terps.
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