The Dugout – Guess Who's Baaaaaack!
Unbeaten No Longer
Only four teams have ever won their first 14 games. All the previous three made the Super Bowl. One, the 1972 Miami Dolphins, went all the way through undefeated. The Carolina Panthers will not repeat that history, falling at the fifteenth task to the Atlanta Falcons.
A touchdown on their first drive had the Panthers looking decent but they wouldn’t find their way into the end zone again all game. They only turned the ball over once (a late Cam fumble) but Newton also only threw for 142 yards and nobody really stood out for them. Maybe a little complacent, while the Falcons were definitely there to play. Out of the playoffs, this’ll now stand out as the supreme achievement of their season.
Julio Jones got all the way up for a 70 yards touchdown in the third quarter to give ATL the lead and Carolina, for once, didn’t have a late comeback in them. They even got two bites at the cherry with the Falcons doing their best to throw it away by twice stopping the clock with penalty flags while they were trying to kill time. Instead of giving them about 10 seconds left, they gave the Panthers 1:24… but after a 19 yard pass to Corey Brown on first down, Vic Beasley Jr. stripped Cam Newton of the football and Adrian Clayborn recovered for the win.
Which puts the Panthers in the company of the 2009 Indianapolis Colts, who were 14-0 before getting beaten by the New York Jets and then pretty much throwing away week 17 to the Buffalo Bills to end 14-2. They’d lose to the New Orleans Saints in the Super Bowl.
The Playoff Race
With only one round remaining in the 2015 NFL season, most of the playoff picture has been coloured in but there are still a few little things to be played out. Here’s how things look:
NFC
Carolina Panthers – Clinched NFC South
Arizona Cardinals – Clinched NFC West
(Both have first round byes, CAR will take first seed with a win, ARI will get first seed with a win and a CAR loss)
Washington R*skins – Clinched NFC East
Seattle Seahawks – Clinched Wildcard Spot
Green Bay Packers – Clinched Playoff Spot
Minnesota Vikings – Clinched Playoff Spot
(GBP hosts MIN in week 17, a win or a tie and they claim the NFC North, a MIN win and they get the division – the loser settles for a Wildcard Spot)
AFC
New England Patriots – Clinched AFC East and a first round bye
(Will get the first seed with a win or a DEN loss)
Denver Broncos – Clinched playoff spot
(Can still get the one seed with a win and a NEP loss, but still need a win or a KCC loss for the AFC West title)
Kansas City Chiefs – Clinched playoff spot, will claim AFC West with a win and a DEN loss
New York Jets – Will clinch a Wildcard with a win or a PIT loss
Cincinnati Bengals – Clinched AFC North
(And will earn the second seed with either a win and a DEN loss or a KCC win and a DEN loss)
Pittsburgh Steelers – Must win to have a shot and a Wildcard and also need the Jets to lose
Houston Texans – Win and they take the AFC South. IND lose and the Texans take the AFC South. They’re also strongly favoured in the strength of schedule stakes against the Colts because…
Indianapolis Colts – Here’s what needs to happen for the Colts to make the playoffs:
Chur Steve
- at LAL (120-85): 25 MINS, 6 PTS (3/5 FG, 0/1 FT), 7 REB, 1 AST, 1 STL, 2 BLK, 2 TO, 2 PF
- vs CHI (L 105-96): 13 MINS, 3 PTS (1/3 FG 1/2 FT), 4 REB, 2 PF
- vs DEN (W 122-112): 22 MINS, 2 PTS (0/1 FG, 2/2 FT), 3 REB, 2 TO, 3 PF
No big, domineering double-doubles this week for Steven Adams. It wasn’t a great week at all for him, really, though he did start it off nicely against the Lakers. OKC had beaten Kobe’s lot by 40 a few games earlier at home and here they met on Jack Nicholson’s home court… and beat them by 35. The first time in NBA history that a team has beaten the same opposition by 35 or more twice in the space of seven days. Adams played some great defence (albeit against an offensively limited Roy Hibbert) and put up a stat line to rival the quality he’s logged the last week or two. From the Thunderous Intentions blog:
“Adams continues to develop, both offensively and defensively. His pick-and-roll action with Westbrook has been deadly of late. On defense, he’s so active, using his hands to push, grab and generally harass an opponent. LA’s Roy Hibbert looked exhausted dealing with him all night.”
At one point it was a competitive game. And then the Thunder went of a 13 minute 45-9 run. No team in the world is surviving that.
Whereas the Bulls game, on Christmas Day, was one where Steve probably could have gotten away with taking that extra slice of Xmas turkey for lunch. He picked up two fouls within the first two minutes of the game as OKC soon found themselves in an 11-0 hole to start the game. The Bulls led throughout the first half, though a 15-3 run to close pulled it back within two at the break – Adams having played only five minutes. He’d get a chunk of third Q mins but they weren’t good ones and he’d sit out the fourth with OKC searching for offence in a game they’d never lead. Steve finishing with the second worse +/- number in his career at -24.
And then to finish the week, the Thunder were in Colorado to play Denver. Three quarters of ice coldness was trumped by a sharp fourth in what ended up being a comfortable enough win despite trailing with under 10 mins to play. Steve’s minutes were back up above 20 but he was largely ineffective, his main moment probably being when he was called for offensive interference on an alley-oop. Even the ref offered a “my bad” after that. He did get hacked late on, the Nuggets (and coach Mike Malone) working their way around the two minute rule by getting Steve on the rebound from a Nuggets free throw, though despite being scoreless ‘til then, Steve stepped up and nailed both his shots. Good lad, saved him from what woulda been only his second scoreless game of the season (and he went off injured in the other).
A Steven Adams wish from folks in the know:
Thunderous Intentions Xmas Pressies:
Steven Adams – Softer Hands: Adams has turned into a serviceable player on offense, but he’s still flawed. His biggest flaw is his inability to handle passes in the post. He often times bobbles the pass, leading to turnovers. Softer hands would allow him to catch the pass and smoothly finish around the rim.
Also, this:
The Hayne Refrain – Week 16
Hey so not only did Jarryd Hayne make the active playing squad for the San Francisco 49ers’ second to last game following his reinstatement on the roster last week, but the bloody lad started too!
Interesting day of sport for him too. The rushes came predominantly in the first half and the catches in the second, as the Niners tried to stretch things out while playing with a deficit. The Lions aren’t much more than a middling team but it’s a lot better than they were in the first quarter of the season. They kept the 49ers scoreless in the second half and rolled to a 32-17 victory.
During his first spell on the playing roster, Hayne wasn’t often trusted with pass blocking. For good reason, he was maybe a little too used to being directly involved in plays and had a tendency to spot the pressure too late. Nothing shocking there, that’s just inexperience. But in this game he took the field for over half of their total offensive snaps. 35 of them (out of 62), more than any non-starter (including running backs). Part of that is the players they had unavailable but it was still a very big tick of approval after his time on the practice squad. Bruce Ellington remained on punt and kick return duty.
Hayne ran hard but didn’t get the holes to attack. Commendable stuff and he saw every play through to the end, plus his blocking was noticeably better, his instincts too. Nothing over the top awesome but he held his own. They did tend to use fullback Bruce Miller on obvious passing plays though. Hayne’s expected to be active for next game too, which’ll keep his contract running over into next season with San Fran.
“I thought he represented himself well” – Coach Jim Tomsula
Yankee Doodle
Keep an eye out for the New York Yankees next season, they’re making moves. It’s not been good since the old guard got… well, old. But in recent years they’ve set about slowly rebuilding the core of their team. Their free agents have mostly been older guys but we’ve also seen younger players like Didi Gregorius, Michael Pineda and Gregory Bird integrate themselves into things and they’ve just added a killer arm to their bullpen, taking after World Series champs Kansas City’s approach of creating a great rotation of starters by shielding them with relievers.
Aroldis Chapman is the hardest thrower in the Majors, regularly going above 100 mph. In fact he threw the 62 fastest pitches of last season. SIXTY TWO! He’s a lefty eligible for free agency after 2016 and, at 27 years of age, has 146 career saves and last year pitched 66.1 innings at a 1.63 ERA. He joins the Yanks from the Cincinnati Reds for an assortment of prospects. Along with Dellin Betances and Andrew Miller, the Yankees are gonna be damn near unbeatable with sixth innings leads next year.
Although there is one potential hitch. Chapman is the subject of an ongoing MLB investigation into an alleged domestic assault in which a dozen police were called to his house to deal with the incident. No arrests were made, apparently there were “conflicting stories”, but according to Yahoo Sports (who got their hands on the police docos earlier in the month) Chapman and his girlfriend got into an argument over something she found on his phone and involved choking, pushing against a wall and eight loosed gunshots. Read up on that here, if you must. Legally he’s fine and nothing is progressing there but the MLB may choose to suspend him based on their own code of conduct. That’s what stopped the LA Dodgers from going through with a reportedly agreed upon trade a few weeks back when this broke but the Yankees are prepared for the gamble, given that they’re not sacrificing anything too valuable.
NFL Week 16 Power Rankings:
- Arizona Cardinals (Last Week = 2)
- Carolina Panthers (1)
- Kansas City Chiefs (5)
- New England Patriots (3)
- Denver Broncos (7)
- Minnesota Vikings (10)
- Cincinnati Bengals (8)
- New York Jets (NA)
- Seattle Seahawks (4)
- Washington R*dskins (NA)
Bring Ya Game
Ouch
Solo Boogie
DeRozan… Boom
Face Palmer
Doctor J on the Silver Screen
The Tall & Short of It
Muggsy Bogues, at 5 ft 3 in (1.60 m), is the shortest player to ever play in the NBA. Per wiki:
“In his rookie year, Bogues was a teammate of Manute Bol who stood 7 ft 7 in (2.31 m) tall. They were the tallest and shortest players in NBA history at the time, with 28 inches (71 cm) difference between them.”
Good Week:
New York Jets – There can’t be anything quite like getting a crucial win over your biggest rivals, especially when you’d lost 8 of your last 9 to them. The Patriots were pretty injured and clearly lacked cohesion but few can argue that the Jets were good for it, Ryan Fitzpatrick had a goodie and Brandon Marshall was fantastic. Of course, the Pats still managed to make it into a conspiracy with a weird coin toss situation in OT.
Julio Jones (Atlanta Falcons) – Nine catches for 178 yards with a touchdown against an unbeaten team on the way to a victory. Jones was outstanding, the clear man of the match. He’s actually not that far from the all-time record for catches in a season, his 127 are third and he has a game to pass Antonio Brown’s 129 (2014) and Marvin Harrison’s 143 (2002).
Marcin Gortat (Washington Wizards) – The Polish Hammer had quite a week, averaging 21.3 points and 11.7 rebounds over the Wiz’s last three games, all wins of course. It’s been good from DC’s finest too, John Wall stringing some great games together and the team putting up Ws – though they since got done in by the Clippers.
Bad Week:
Miami Dolphins – Short of a disastrous season in which they’ve sacked a head coach and struggled horrifically on both sides of the ball – 27th in points scored and 23rd in points conceded. They just lost tamely to the Indy Colts’ third string quarterback, things couldn’t be worse unless their star CB (Brett Grimes, FYI)’s wife laid into their QB in a wild twitter outburst. Oh… she did.
Mike Tomlin (Pittsburgh Steelers) – Some losses are indictments on players and others fall purely at the feet of the head coach. The Steelers played a Ravens team staring at a top five pick, with Ryan Mallett starting at QB and crippled by injury as they have been all season. And the Steelers’ superb offence couldn’t move at all on them, going down 20-17 in a loss that puts their playoff place in jeopardy. Honestly, they shoulda put 40 on them.
Minnesota Timberwolves – Four losses in a row, albeit all to probable playoff teams, and they’re now at 11-20… having started the season at 8-8. The miracle playoff run now looks unlikely, this is fast becoming yet another development year (but at least their developing players are absolute guns).
Player of the Week:
Russell Westbrook (Oklahoma City Thunder) – Man, this guy is so good. 28 points, 8.8 assists, 7.3 rebounds and 3 steals a game across the Thunder’s last four, his 33 point night in a tight win over the Clippers was probably the best of them. Do not by any means ignore the fact that OKC still has two of the top ten players in the NBA and they’re both playing great.