Photo by Jason Antony

I wanted more traffic to my site, so I wrote this post about sports.  That’s what it takes.  Nobody really cares about my musings on pickles or art, but I drop the name Peyton Manning or something sports related and people start clicking.  I’m pretty sure anything NFL related get the highest traffic.

I have to admit, I’m a sucker for a story about Purdue basketball, the Colts, the Pacers, or the Cincinnati Reds.  And I’m not really sure why I care.  I really wish I didn’t.  I know that sports are great for a community’s healthy interaction and vital economic engines that create jobs through merchandise sales, restaurant sales, and tourism to name a few.  Indianapolis is one city that has done very well in profiting off the sports market by hosting multiple major events such as the NCAA Final Four, the Big Ten basketball tournament, the inaugural Big Ten football playoff game, and now the Super Bowl.

In Indiana, we’re a bit sports crazy.  My wife insists it’s at a different level compared to other places.  I’m not sure I agree considering we’ve never experienced first hand the insanity of Green Bay, Cleveland, or Pittsburgh.  She bases this comment on the intensity of the youth sports programs here, but we didn’t have kids who were sports playing age before moving to Indiana, so her theory has lots of holes.  I think, as a whole, we have all just become a little more sports centric.  Culture demands it because so many businesses are dependent on sports.  Without a strong sports culture, the bar scene would probably be cut by a third.

Sports have become a vital part of our culture.  If a business doesn’t actually trade in sports, sports is at least used as a social object, a conversation piece, or something to rally around over business meetings, lunches, and coffee breaks.  Maybe if sports never existed we’d spend more time talking about the theater and the arts, but probably not.  Instead we’d probably just invent sports.

This is a very risky post.   Sometimes it’s just wiser to stay out of heated debates and avoid the risk of others disparaging your character or intelligence.  Especially when all I’m talking about is football.

Right now the Indianapolis Colts are in the throws of their worst season of the teams almost 60 year existence.  That’s somewhat hard to believe considering all those years through the 80s and 90s when the team could essentially be excluded from playoff consideration after the second preseason game.  Those were the years that the Colts did an excellent job of devising a plan on how to be an abysmal failure by racking up gads of high first round picks who would be busts within two years.  The Detroit Lions worked the Colts plan to perfection thoughout the first decade of this millennium

Then the Colts had to go and mess up their string of futility by drafting Peyton Manning.  Of course Manning’s first year with the Colts was not much different than most of the preceding years, but gradually the team got better.  Many fans gave credit to the owner, Jim Irsay (probably deserved).  Others touted the genius of Bill Polian (maybe true).  Certainly, most fans sang the praises of the developing future Hall of Famer, Manning.  I’m not even factoring in the three head coaches during Manning’s tenure.  The truth is that through the efforts of all three men, the Colts became a powerhouse in the NFL for over a decade.  A very good run.

However, with the latest events (I’m referring to Mannings’ neck), it has become clear that one of the three men was more important than the other two.  Owners have a lot to do with creating a successful team, but I believe they have more to do with making a team an utter disaster.  We can think of several owners who just can’t seem to get out of their own way.  General managers obviously have a direct affect on the specific personnel taking the field, but once in a lifetime quarterbacks make all the difference in the NFL.  And while other players may be irreplaceable, superstar quarterbacks are 100% irreplaceable.

While I’m a big fan of Irsay and think Polian is a pretty good GM, the real reason the Colts have been a success is because of Manning.  No, duh, Einstein.  But the real debate, when it became evident that this season was lost (game 1 or game 2), was whether the Colts should  start planning for the future by drafting Andrew Luck (the sure thing, ready for the NFL quarterback) and move on from Manning or keep Manning and trade Luck for picks and players.  The other argument had the team keeping both quarterbacks but seems far less sensible to me.

Here’s what I think:

If (and it’s a big “if”) Manning is healthy, the Colts have to keep him and trade the Luck pick for more top draft picks and starters.  If Luck is as qualified and desirable quarterback as all the experts are saying (I wouldn’t know, I’ve never seen him play and don’t possess the expertise even if I had seen him play), then his value as a trade is sky high.  Maybe I’m delusional, but I believe many of the younger players on this year’s team are gaining valuable experience that will make them better next year.  Add that to the new and some top tier, experienced talent for the next season or two… and Manning, and the Colts have a chance to make a couple more runs at the Superbowl.

If the Colts were to ditch Manning (who has brought untold fame and cash to Indianapolis), the team would definitely be in rebuilding mode for the next several years.  The Colts know what they get with Manning.  He’s a smart, hard working, talented, elite quarterback.  With Luck the team gets a ton of potential.  Fans quickly get bored with, and GMs and coaches get fired because of potential.  This is a now society, and I believe the Colts have a better immediate future with Manning.

The Get Motivated! Business Seminar is coming to town.  It’s a chance to hear some of the great speakers of our generation such as Zig Ziglar, Steve Forbes, and Colin Powell.  While I have little interest in most of the speakers, I wouldn’t mind hearing Zig Ziglar speak.  Steve Forbes would be interesting too.  So as seminars go, Get Motivated may actually be worthwhile.  But what has made me pay attention to the fact that it is coming to Indianapolis is that they really botched the advertising.

Indianapolis is first and foremost a sports town.  Of course, you’re  probably aware of the fact that Indiana is known for basketball.  But you may not have known that the city of Indianapolis is home to the NCAA, USA Diving, Midwest USTA, USA Gymnastics, USA Football,the Horizon League, The NFL Scouting Combine, and  The National Federation of High School Associations.  Indianapolis also is home to the Colts and the Pacers as well as a AAA baseball team.  Yet, above all those elite sports organizations, Indianapolis is most known for the Indianapolis 500.  You’ve heard of it right?  The Greatest Spectacle in Racing.  The event is held every May over Memorial Day weekend at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, which is also the location for The Brickyard 400.

With the knowledge that the Indy 500 is one of the best known sporting events in the world and is what has essentially put Indianapolis on the map, what did the promoters of Get Motivated do?  They ran an ad that touted Danica Patrick as a speaker and labeled her as a “NASCAR driver.”  This was wrong on so many levels.  First, this is freaking Indianapolis.  Home of Indy Car racing.  Second, Danica Patrick has run all of maybe five NASCAR races while she has competed in Indy Car for over five years.  Third, Patrick has actually won an Indy Car race (rain shortened, but a win is a win) and I’m not sure she’s even finished in the top 20 of any of her NASCAR starts.  So what idiot drafted that radio script to be aired in Indianapolis?

The good news is that someone got the message and they have since changed the radio ad.  Now Patrick’s name is tagged on the end of the list of speakers and she is not credited with any association to Indy Car or NASCAR.  In fact now she sounds like an afterthought.  Of course, none of this even deals with the issue of Patrick as a motivational speaker.  I’ll give her credit.  She competes in one of the top sports in the world, it’s a sport dominated by men, and she has been modestly successful.  On the other hand she is no where near the level of many of the other speakers in the Get Motivated seminar.  Where does she rate next to Colin Powell, Zig Ziglar, Steve Forbes, or Rudy Giuliani?  She’s not even on the level of Joe Montana or Terry Bradshaw.  What would we think of any of these men if they were best known for their swimsuit pictures?  Either way, I’m sure there are some people out there who would like to hear what she has to say.  And as an Indy Car fan and Indianapolis resident, anything to bring attention to the 500 is good.

Now the ad writer needs to work on one more issue.  Joe Montana, the greatest quarterback of all time?  This is Indianapolis, home of the Colts.  You might have heard of a guy named Peyton Manning.  San Francisco may think Montana is the greatest.  Even some Notre Dame fans around here may agree, but I think most Indianapolis residents would beg to differ.  Reasonable people will agree to disagree, but let’s face it, when you’re marketing a product, it’s best to know your audience.

LeBron's going to the New York... Yankees? Photo by David Shankbone

It’s the scoop of the century.  If you know what team LeBron James will sign with and then post it to your blog or website first, just think of the amazing traffic you will attract.  Other sites will link to you.  You may even get a few click through on your Adsense ads.  You would be reverred by journalists abroad for gettting the scoop and more importantly getting it right.

So do I really know where LeBron is going to play basketball next season?  Sure, New York… No, wait, Cleveland… Or Chicago.  Actually, I’m still holding out hope for the Pacers.  Of course, as you can see, I have no clue.  I’m not an insider in the sporting world.  I don’t have a crystal ball.  And I definitely don’t know “King James” (his loss).

The great thing about scooping this story is that it will be old news almost as soon as it’s new news.  So, who will get the real scoop?  LeBron James.  I can see him posting it on his website and then letting the media frenzy begin. (Oddly enough, it doesn’t look like LeBron has a truly active website.  His official site says it’s about to launch.  So, if it doesn’t launch when he announces his basketball plans, will it ever launch?  Will it matter?  How in the world does the first or second most popular basketball player in the world not have an active website?  Maybe he’s planning to launch the site the same day he announces.  That would most likely be the highest first day of traffic for any website).

While I won’t be the one to scoop the LeBron James story, I will probably be the first one to post it to all my friends on Facebook.  I may even be one of the first on Twitter (there’s a challenge).  So while I won’t be THE first, I will be one of the first and just think of all the notoriety that comes with… right, none.

7/6 UPDATE:  Apparently, I won’t be the first on Twitter because LeBron just signed up for Twitter.  Now this is power.  He signed up today, and he already has over 167,000 followers!  You can check him out at @KingJames on Twitter.

The problem with sports is the refs.  They screw-up so many calls.  They ruin perfect games, miss the big penalties, and call fouls that are only imagined.

The problem with sports is the players.  They’re a big bunch of overpaid whining babies who have a ton of athletic ability and very little common sense.  They carry guns, get into fights, stay out too late, and then wonder where all their money went as they file bankruptcy after only three years out of the league.

The problem with sports is the fans.  So many of them are uncultured blow hards who drink too much, run naked onto the field, and get into fights in the stands.  They are blindly loyal when the team is winning and no where to be found when the team is losing.

The problem with sports is the coaches.  Too often they use the wrong line-up, make stupid play calls, and cannot command the respect of their players.

The problem with sports is the owners.  For some reason they think they are qualified to evaluate talent when their specialty is accounting.  And when all else fails, their solution always seems to include spending more money, especially if it’s the taxpayers’.

The problems with sports is the commissioners.  They think they own the game.  They change the rules and hand out meaningless suspensions and fines.

The problem with sports is the money.  Whatever happened to playing for the love of the game?  Players only play hard when it’s a contract year and don’t respect the contract they have signed by demanding more money with two years left on their current deal.

The problems with sports are what makes it really great.  It’s the problems that keep the conversation going.  It’s what powers so many radio and television shows and written content on the Internet, in magazines, and in papers. The problems in sports helps create a more textured and indepth story.  If there were just the game, at some point we’d get bored.  But when you add bad calls, player complaints, commissioners trying to change the rules, ridiculous salaries, and obsessed fans, you have a beautiful story filled with flawed characters and compelling plots.

So the problem with sports… is what makes it great.  It’s a problem that doesn’t need to be solved.

If you have an ad that features a star and you have to print their name and then say they are a “star”, doesn’t defeat the purpose?  Why spend a ton of money for a “star” who has so little recognition and name status that you have to tell your audience that he’s a “star”?

I often see a Safe Auto Insurance billboard featuring a picture of Michael Redd.  It says by his picture that he’s “Michael Redd Basketball Star”.  Being a basketball fan, I know who Michael Redd is, but I would never recognize him by his picture.  I would bet that the majority of the US population has no idea who Michael Redd is.  I know he played college ball for a Big Ten team and that he is or was on the Milwaukee Bucks in the NBA, but that would be the extent of my Michael Redd knowledge.

So did Safe Auto waste their money by hiring Michael Redd as a spokesman?  My guess is that they did not.  Why?  Because their target audience does know who Michael Redd is.  I have to figure that Safe Auto, or their advertising firm, tested and checked Q scores and found that their target market was familiar with Redd.

Sure, from a practical standpoint, it’s ridiculous to pay a star who is not really one.  That is a waste of money.  But to pay someone who, while not a true star of the Brangelina stratosphere, is a star in a specific community may be very profitable.

In Safe Auto’s case, why pay for Kobe Bryant when you can get a much less expensive Michael Redd and have a similar impact?  It makes sense.

While I had a good laugh at the Michael Redd billboard at first, the more I thought about it, the more I could appreciate it.  The target market was addressed by showing Redd’s image and name.  The rest of us who are just curious about who this Michael Redd is and why he’s on a billboard are provided the answer with the description “Basketball Star”.

Is Redd a star in the truest sense?  Possibly.  While he’s not a megastar like Kobe or LeBron or Shaq who transcend their sport, he’s enough of a star to generate face or name recognizability.  In fact, the more I see his billboard, the more it is ingrained in my mind that Redd is a star.  However, not a star for basketball.  In my mind, he’ll be a “Safe Auto Billboard Star”.

Not that I really want to focus on yesterday’s Super Bowl because my team lost, but having made so many previous posts on the topic, I feel obligated.

Yesterday, the better team won.  Ouch.  That hurts to say, but it’s true.  I felt that the teams were very evenly matched, and when you look back on it, which I’d prefer not to do, the final outcome really hinged on three or four plays, and for the most part, those plays went the Saints’ way.

Having made a pregame case as to why the Colts would win, here is what a friend wrote to me after the game:

“As I was saying…Better defense and a well-balanced offense is superior to a team that depends heavily on their QB, who somehow decided to turn in desperation to his anemic running game, which could only do so much in a game of this magnitude. Your thoughts?”

Here was my long winded response:

“Unfortunately, someone has to lose and it was the Colts this year. I will refrain from making excuses since I didn’t play the game. All I could do was yell at the TV. The other great thing is that my team was in the Super Bowl this year. They were there in ’07, and I’m pretty confident they will be knocking on the door next year and possibly for a few years after that. Most fans can’t say that. So I will enjoy the fact that the Colts went back to the Super Bowl and now enjoy an offseason where I will get a few more things done on Sundays.”

I’m disappointed that the Colts lost.  Probably not as much as those who spent a few thousand dollars to go to Miami and see the game live… although they got to go to Miami, while I shoveled snow here in Indy.  Ultimately, I’m just trying to enjoy the fact that my favorite NFL team is so good.  They’ve gone to the playoffs for eight straight seasons and had seven consecutive regular seasons with twelve or more wins.  This will not last forever.  Things can change quickly.  One day the Colts will not win twelve games in the regular season and they will not make the playoffs.  So while it hurts to see my team lose the big game, I’d rather feel this pain than the pain of my team being one and fifteen at the end of the season.

Now I’ll take some time to recouperate over the offseason and get some other work done. 

Congratulations to the Saints and Go Colts!

Oh, and one other thing, was it just me, or did pretty much all of the commercials stink this year?

The Super Bowl is almost here and my sports related posts will soon come to a close, but considering that I live in Indy and the Colts are in the Super Bowl, I have a few more football posts left in me.

Tonight I was watching the news and I saw Queen Latifah say that she was rooting for the Saints because they were the Cinderella team.  Since when?  If I remember correctly, the Saints only lost three games this season.  They dominated almost every team they played with a high flying offense and pounding defense.  Brett Farve was hit so hard two weeks ago I think they knocked his dentures out.

A Cinderella team is one that is not on equal footing with all the other teams, but for some reason is still competing and winning.  We see it every year in college basketball during March Madness.  A Cinderella is George Mason going to the Final Four, or NC State winning the whole thing.  The Cardinals of last year’s Super Bowl were more of a Cinderella team than the Saints.  I wonder if Queen Latifah was cheering for them.

Nothing about the Saints this season says “Cinderella”.  Sure the franchise has been a disaster for generations, but that does not make them a Cinderella.  Actually, for the past two or three years, the Saints have turned their franchise around, which is directly related to Drew Brees and Sean Payton.

In fact, the Saints remind me of the Colts before Peyton Manning showed up followed by Tony Dungy (Bill Polian had a big hand in there too).  The Colts were awful for so many years.  The only reason they were able to draft Manning was because they were flat out horrendous.  And they weren’t just bad for one or two seasons.  It spanned decades.

I get the fact that the Saints are the darlings of America right now.  It’s a great story.  A loser of a team for generations finally makes it to the Super Bowl.  The city is still rebuilding from Katrina.  And they’ve never won a Championship.  I would have been cheering for the Saints if the Colts had not made it.  I’m a huge Purdue fan, so I always want Brees to be a dominant QB in the NFL.  So it makes sense that the majority want to see the Saints win.

But let’s not kid ourselves.  The Saints are a high powered team that rolled through the season.  They are no Cinderella.  They’re an elite team.  One that is better than every other team in the NFC.  They are on equal footing with the Colts and should make the Super Bowl a spectacular event.

With that said, I still feel pretty confident that the Colts will win.  Maybe it’s destiny, but I think Peyton is on his way to three of four Super Bowl rings.  So my prediction for this one is Colts 35 and Saint 27.

Rookie Quarterback

I’m biased.  I’ve been a Colts fan since they rolled into Indy on the Mayflower trucks in 1984.  So what I’m about to write is probably a bit slanted.

The Jets will lose on Sunday to the Colts.  And they will lose for one reason.  No, it’s not because Peyton Manning is Indy’s quarterback.  It’s not because the Colts defense is underrated and overlooked.  It’s not because the Colts are the home team.  It’s also not because Indy had the best record in the NFL this season.  It has nothing to do with the Joe Namath Jets beating them in the Super Bowl eons ago, and nothing to do with the 2002 Jets playoff win over the Colts.

Why will the Jets lose?  They will lose because Mark Sanchez is a rookie.

Can you name the last rookie starting quarterback to win the Super Bowl?  No.  What about the last rookie starting quarterback to go to the Super Bowl?  Again, you can’t because no rookie starting quarterback has ever gone to the Super Bowl.  Ben Roethlisberger is the youngest quarterback to ever go to the Super Bowl (age 23), but his rookie season ended in a loss in the AFC Championship game.

So, while all the “experts” on television are claiming that the Jets will win, I’m pretty skeptical.  I heard Tedy Bruschi on ESPN radio this morning tell me all the reasons why the Jets will win, however once I ran his commentary through my “Former New England Patriot Decoder”, I found that his bias was causing glaucoma of the brain.  In addition, all the guys on Dan Patrick’s radio show were predicting the Jets.  Can you say, “East Coast Bias?”

I’m all for the “experts” picking the other team.  Many of them know a lot about Xs and Os, but they can never really separate themselves from their personal biases.  Remember the midseason game between the Colts and Patriots?  On NBC, Rodney Harrison picked the Pats to win, and Tony Dungy picked the Colts.  Sure they had their reasons, but no one would ever convince me that their hearts didn’t make their final picks.

While I’m extremely confident that the Colts will win this Sunday, I’m admittedly biased.  I also have a healthy fear that something will go wrong for the Colts.  That’s why they play the game, right?  But in the meantime, I’ll keep listening to the “experts” discount the Colts chances, knowing they are usually incorrect.

This is by no means a sports blog, but I just realized that several of my latest posts are about sports.  More specifically, the Colts.  I guess it just reflects the time of year and some of my interests.  Pretty soon the NFL season will be over, and I’ll be on to something else.  (I’ll try to keep my Purdue basketball passion tempered and only make a few posts about their run to the NCAA Championship.)  In the meantime, before the Colts start their playoffs run, I was inspired to make a few comments about the Colts situation.

The Colts have put themselves in a no win situation unless they win the Super Bowl.  And even if they do win the Super Bowl, many fans won’t be satisfied, saying that they could have been perfect and they threw it all away. 

Anyone who has followed Colts football would agree that Bill Polian (General Manager of the Colts) is a smart man.  Of course it doesn’t hurt to have Peyton Manning as your quarterback, but Polian has continued to find players who fit the Colts’ system and allow Manning to excel.  However, Polian (not that he was alone in the decision) may have made a big mistake by insisting that the starters rest the final couple games of the season.   

The sentiment around Indianapolis immediately following the first loss was deadly.  The fans were outraged.  From my perspective, it has to be worse to lose a game on purpose than when your trying to win but lose.  In that situation a player can come off the field and truly say, “I gave it everything I had.”  A player who loses on purpose cannot say anything except, “sorry.”  And that’s exactly what Peyton Manning did a few days later.  Now the only thing the Colts can do to make it up to the city of Indianapolis or the state of Indiana and all other Colts fans out ther is to win the Super Bowl. 

If the Colts lose in the first round, Polian will want to schedule a long vacation to some place far far away.  I would think that if he showed up anywhere in public in Indianapolis, he’d be tarred and feathered.  Losing to San Diego in the AFC Championship wouldn’t be as bad because they have looked nearly unstoppable as of late.  On the other hand, San Diego has had the Colts number the last few years, so a loss to Philip Rivers would be unbearable.

It’s odd to say, but losing in the Super Bowl could possibly be the best result for the Colts.  I write this somewhat tongue in cheek, but think about it.  By getting to the Super Bowl, the Colts would have proven that resting the starters at the end of the season had no affect on the team in the playoffs.  It would also mean that the Colts got past the Chargers finally.  Moreover, if the Colts lose the Super Bowl, they won’t hear the outcry of, “We could have had a perfect season!”

So, while I hope the Colts go all the way, I’ll take it one game at a time.  In past years I’ve looked at this first game of the playoffs as a gimme.  But they’ve been nothing of the sort.  So this year I’m expecting the worst and hoping for the best… However, the Colts have beaten the Ravens seven straight, and it was this game in 2006 which helped propel the Colts to the Championship.  I’m hoping for the same result.

I thought about concluding with my prediciton for Saturday’s game, but why would that matter.  I’m biased.