Monday Morning Mehta 1/3/05
***********EDITION # 100***********
January 3, 2004
After a huge celebration on Friday night the world is still in a buzz over MMM's 100th edition. We have a lot to cover this week so let's get started:
Derreck Sura is still on vacation & will be back next week.
Eagles
Eagles get drilled with their replacement team 38-10. I'm on record as being a proponent of sitting all the starters so I didn't put too much into this game. In fact, we're not going to look back at this one too much, in fact we'll look ahead at Wild Card weekend.
Game Positives:
a. Nothing. I didn't see anything I really liked. Eric McCoo & Freddie Mitchell was about the closest thing.
Game Negatives:
a. Everyone. Rod Hood seemed especially pathetic but I can't even single anyone out. It was hard to tell who was really at fault when Koy Detmer was awful but the line was atrocious.
Eagles will now wait need to wait another week before we see who they play. If the Vikings win, it's easy, the Eagles will host the Vikings. If the Packers win, the Eagles will play the winner of the Seattle/St. Louis game.
Very strange seeing someone wearing # 22 in an Eagle uniform and it not being Duce Staley.
Around the League
Some crazy games yesterday in the NFL.
The Game of the Week was the Saints and Panthers. Everyone was so scared of those Panthers, and like I've been saying for weeks they proved fraudulent. They didn't beat a single winning team in their whole streak, and it showed as the Saints pretty much controlled the whole game.
It's very funny that the hottest team going into the weekend, the Buffalo Bills, lost because of Drew Bledsoe. Drew Bledsoe is awful and just couldn't get it done yesterday against most of the Steelers starters. He was once again terrible yesterday. J.P. Losman can't play any quicker.
Just like last year, the Broncos beat the Colts late in the regular season and will now travel to Indy to face the Colts. I'll save the analysis for below but I don't see much changes in the outcome here...
I won't get on Daunte Culpepper too much this week because the word was he had the flu. But he essentially put up 10 points in the most important game of the year. The last few seconds hail mary gave the Vikings 18 points. Daunte will have a chance next week to redeem himself on the road so I'll just wait and see how he does there.
As a side note, I got 7 out of the 12 playoff teams correct. It's about on par to the experts and I still have my Super Bowl teams alive (NE & Philly).
The Rams/Jets game ended up not meaning much for the Jets. By the time the game went into OT, they knew they had a playoff birth locked up. Nonetheless Chad Pennington who I will keep saying is playing hurt (he admitted to it this week), looks way too inconsistent for the Jets to go very far.
My top QB's as the playoffs start are the same as they were a month ago. Manning will need to make the Super Bowl to move up. McNabb will move down if he doesn't. McNair will need to not retire. Culpepper winning a road game or two will help him.
1. Tom Brady
2. Donovan McNabb
3. Michael Vick
4. Peyton Manning
5. Steve McNair
6. Chad Pennington
7. Daunte Culpepper
One good year, not enough to make the big list:
Ben Roethlisberger
Drew Brees
Matt Hasselbeck
Wild Card Weekend
Saturday 4:30pm EST St. Louis at Seattle (-4)
The Rams have had the Seahawks number this year. A great comeback win early in the season in Seattle and a win at home later in the year. The Rams also come into the game on a two game winning streak at home. Ditto with the Seahawks. Both these teams play much better at home than on the road. Matt Hasselbeck is healthy again and I think the Seahawks will win this one. The Rams just don't have much defense and I don't see them being able to stop the Seahawks when it matters.
Seahawks 27 - Rams 17.
Saturday 8:00pm EST NY Jets at San Diego (-6)
The Jets have been in a tailspin the last two months of the season. This is a team that started off the season 5-0 and looking like a contender. But they've been terrible the last month of the year and come into the playoffs 1-3 in their last 4. Not a good way to enter the playoffs if your playing meaningful games. San Diego on the other hand has been playing top level football for about 2 months now. The Chargers defense is also getting better as the season has progressed. Like I said above, Chad Pennington is hurt. This to me is the easiest game of the week. San Diego also has in season revenge as the Jets beat the Chargers in SD Week 2.
Chargers 30 - Jets 16.
Sunday 1:00pm EST Denver at Indianapolis (-10)
The rematch of last years game. Why should this be any different? It shouldn't but it's the NFL anything can happen. The Broncos have looked like a different team since their thumping in KC. Jake Plummer is still Jake Plummer but I think this game will be a little bit closer than most people think. The Colts have all the pressure in the world on them to perform in this years playoffs. Peyton Manning's 49 preseason TD's mean squat at this time of year. This should be another high scoring battle, but I think the Colts will pull it out in the end, likely because of something stupid done by Jake.
Colts 34 - Broncos 30.
Sunday 4:30pm EST Minnesota at Green Bay (-6)
These two teams have played twice in the regular season, both games being won by the Packers by the same exact score 34-31 on late FG's. Why is this line GB -6 you ask? I have no idea. Because the public bets the Pack heavy at home generally and the books know that? I don't like this Packers team at all especially against good passing teams. Daunte Culpepper, Nate Burleson & Randy Moss should have a field day against this secondary. On the other end of the ball, Brett Favre should also have great success. The weather could be a wild card here (little play on words there). I think it's time for Culpepper to put all the past behind him and finally win a big one.
Vikings 27 - Packers 24.
This will mean the Eagles would host the Vikings on January 15th/16th...
Phillies/Baseball
Quick update on the Phillies. (Crickets, Tumbleweed...)
In all seriousness, baseball is pretty much in cruise control over the holidays except for the Yankees and D-Backs who are busy at work trying to figure out a deal for Randy Johnson. It appears that the deal is pretty much a done deal. Javier Vazquez, two prospects, and about $9 million. Figure the Yankees are paying about $26 million this year for Randy Johnson. Unreal. Only the Red Sox and Yankees can afford that.
The fallout of this trade will be felt all around the league. Rumor has it that the Phils are hot after Javier Vazquez and are even willing to dangle Randy Wolf. This would be a mistake. I still like Vazquez but you can't discount his horrid second half performance last year.
The two prospects will then be moved to the Dodgers for Shawn Green. This has fishy written all over it. Green, who has not even been close to his normal self the last two years, is scheduled to make $16 million in 2005 of which the Dodgers are paying about half. Green will get a contract extension from the D-Backs as a part of the deal and waiving his no trade. Oh, by the way, the D-Backs GM is ex-agent Jeff Moorad, who happened to have Shawn Green as a client...
Very underrated pickup could be Roberto Alomar by the Cards for a mere $500,000. Alomar, whose career has been in the tank the last 3 years, is 37 and may have a decent year or two left in him. Let's put it this way, who would Phillies rather have, Placido Polanco at $5,000,000 or Alomar at $500,000? I guess Wade would rather have Polanco.
NHL Week in Review By: Ed Wasser
- Due to the holiday this will be a short entry this week. In fact it will just be a review of Fairway Miss' race on New Year's Eve. Just to remind everyone Fairway had a new jockey for this race, a kid named Ryan Barber. So Fairway was really up against it this race. This race had two horses in it that cost over $100,000 and one horse, Missile Bay, that cost $185,000 and had victories at Belmont Park (Fairway Miss cost $12,500). Whoever owns Missile Bay wasn't loading her up and driving all the way down from Long Island so she could lose so needless to say she would be tough. The day of the race I see that one of the $100,000 horses, St. John's Dress, is scratched. Also scratched was Lady Silverrod, the horse that finished 2nd in Fairway's last race. With those horses gone Fairway's odds went from 15-1 to 8-5. The only horse with better odds was Missile Bay going off at even money.
Before the race the trainer tells Ryan to stay off the rail whatever he does and don't panic if she's way behind at the half mile pole because she has late speed. So the race starts and Fairway breaks toward the back of the pack but she's relatively close to the leader. I'd say for the first half of the race she was a maximum of 7 lengths behind. I'm feeling super confidant at this point because I'm figuring she can turn on the gas after the turn. AND DOWN THE STRETCH THEY COME!!! Fairway picks up a few places but she's still in third place behind Missile Bay and a total long shot horse named Manhattan Appeal. All of a sudden Missile Bay runs out of gas and Fairway turns on the juice but it was a little too late. Fairway finished 2nd. Manhattan Appeal, the long shot, finished first and Missile Bay finished 3rd. All in all it was a nice effort but the cool part was when I went to the paddock after the race. I saw Ryan Barber and shook his hand and told him 'nice job' or something like that and he seemed upset. He shook his head and said 'next time man. Next time'. I thought that was cool. So as far as I'm concerned Ryan should be our jockey from here on out. He's easy to get because, since he was gone for a few years racing in Louisiana and West Virginia, only a few owners know him so he doesn't get a ton of mounts. Fairway is a 3 year old now and the amount of races she qualifies for is a lot greater. She should be racing again around January 15th. I'll keep you all up to date.
Please comment on this website if you wish (below)...
January 3, 2004
After a huge celebration on Friday night the world is still in a buzz over MMM's 100th edition. We have a lot to cover this week so let's get started:
Derreck Sura is still on vacation & will be back next week.
Eagles
Eagles get drilled with their replacement team 38-10. I'm on record as being a proponent of sitting all the starters so I didn't put too much into this game. In fact, we're not going to look back at this one too much, in fact we'll look ahead at Wild Card weekend.
Game Positives:
a. Nothing. I didn't see anything I really liked. Eric McCoo & Freddie Mitchell was about the closest thing.
Game Negatives:
a. Everyone. Rod Hood seemed especially pathetic but I can't even single anyone out. It was hard to tell who was really at fault when Koy Detmer was awful but the line was atrocious.
Eagles will now wait need to wait another week before we see who they play. If the Vikings win, it's easy, the Eagles will host the Vikings. If the Packers win, the Eagles will play the winner of the Seattle/St. Louis game.
Very strange seeing someone wearing # 22 in an Eagle uniform and it not being Duce Staley.
Around the League
Some crazy games yesterday in the NFL.
The Game of the Week was the Saints and Panthers. Everyone was so scared of those Panthers, and like I've been saying for weeks they proved fraudulent. They didn't beat a single winning team in their whole streak, and it showed as the Saints pretty much controlled the whole game.
It's very funny that the hottest team going into the weekend, the Buffalo Bills, lost because of Drew Bledsoe. Drew Bledsoe is awful and just couldn't get it done yesterday against most of the Steelers starters. He was once again terrible yesterday. J.P. Losman can't play any quicker.
Just like last year, the Broncos beat the Colts late in the regular season and will now travel to Indy to face the Colts. I'll save the analysis for below but I don't see much changes in the outcome here...
I won't get on Daunte Culpepper too much this week because the word was he had the flu. But he essentially put up 10 points in the most important game of the year. The last few seconds hail mary gave the Vikings 18 points. Daunte will have a chance next week to redeem himself on the road so I'll just wait and see how he does there.
As a side note, I got 7 out of the 12 playoff teams correct. It's about on par to the experts and I still have my Super Bowl teams alive (NE & Philly).
The Rams/Jets game ended up not meaning much for the Jets. By the time the game went into OT, they knew they had a playoff birth locked up. Nonetheless Chad Pennington who I will keep saying is playing hurt (he admitted to it this week), looks way too inconsistent for the Jets to go very far.
My top QB's as the playoffs start are the same as they were a month ago. Manning will need to make the Super Bowl to move up. McNabb will move down if he doesn't. McNair will need to not retire. Culpepper winning a road game or two will help him.
1. Tom Brady
2. Donovan McNabb
3. Michael Vick
4. Peyton Manning
5. Steve McNair
6. Chad Pennington
7. Daunte Culpepper
One good year, not enough to make the big list:
Ben Roethlisberger
Drew Brees
Matt Hasselbeck
Wild Card Weekend
Saturday 4:30pm EST St. Louis at Seattle (-4)
The Rams have had the Seahawks number this year. A great comeback win early in the season in Seattle and a win at home later in the year. The Rams also come into the game on a two game winning streak at home. Ditto with the Seahawks. Both these teams play much better at home than on the road. Matt Hasselbeck is healthy again and I think the Seahawks will win this one. The Rams just don't have much defense and I don't see them being able to stop the Seahawks when it matters.
Seahawks 27 - Rams 17.
Saturday 8:00pm EST NY Jets at San Diego (-6)
The Jets have been in a tailspin the last two months of the season. This is a team that started off the season 5-0 and looking like a contender. But they've been terrible the last month of the year and come into the playoffs 1-3 in their last 4. Not a good way to enter the playoffs if your playing meaningful games. San Diego on the other hand has been playing top level football for about 2 months now. The Chargers defense is also getting better as the season has progressed. Like I said above, Chad Pennington is hurt. This to me is the easiest game of the week. San Diego also has in season revenge as the Jets beat the Chargers in SD Week 2.
Chargers 30 - Jets 16.
Sunday 1:00pm EST Denver at Indianapolis (-10)
The rematch of last years game. Why should this be any different? It shouldn't but it's the NFL anything can happen. The Broncos have looked like a different team since their thumping in KC. Jake Plummer is still Jake Plummer but I think this game will be a little bit closer than most people think. The Colts have all the pressure in the world on them to perform in this years playoffs. Peyton Manning's 49 preseason TD's mean squat at this time of year. This should be another high scoring battle, but I think the Colts will pull it out in the end, likely because of something stupid done by Jake.
Colts 34 - Broncos 30.
Sunday 4:30pm EST Minnesota at Green Bay (-6)
These two teams have played twice in the regular season, both games being won by the Packers by the same exact score 34-31 on late FG's. Why is this line GB -6 you ask? I have no idea. Because the public bets the Pack heavy at home generally and the books know that? I don't like this Packers team at all especially against good passing teams. Daunte Culpepper, Nate Burleson & Randy Moss should have a field day against this secondary. On the other end of the ball, Brett Favre should also have great success. The weather could be a wild card here (little play on words there). I think it's time for Culpepper to put all the past behind him and finally win a big one.
Vikings 27 - Packers 24.
This will mean the Eagles would host the Vikings on January 15th/16th...
Phillies/Baseball
Quick update on the Phillies. (Crickets, Tumbleweed...)
In all seriousness, baseball is pretty much in cruise control over the holidays except for the Yankees and D-Backs who are busy at work trying to figure out a deal for Randy Johnson. It appears that the deal is pretty much a done deal. Javier Vazquez, two prospects, and about $9 million. Figure the Yankees are paying about $26 million this year for Randy Johnson. Unreal. Only the Red Sox and Yankees can afford that.
The fallout of this trade will be felt all around the league. Rumor has it that the Phils are hot after Javier Vazquez and are even willing to dangle Randy Wolf. This would be a mistake. I still like Vazquez but you can't discount his horrid second half performance last year.
The two prospects will then be moved to the Dodgers for Shawn Green. This has fishy written all over it. Green, who has not even been close to his normal self the last two years, is scheduled to make $16 million in 2005 of which the Dodgers are paying about half. Green will get a contract extension from the D-Backs as a part of the deal and waiving his no trade. Oh, by the way, the D-Backs GM is ex-agent Jeff Moorad, who happened to have Shawn Green as a client...
Very underrated pickup could be Roberto Alomar by the Cards for a mere $500,000. Alomar, whose career has been in the tank the last 3 years, is 37 and may have a decent year or two left in him. Let's put it this way, who would Phillies rather have, Placido Polanco at $5,000,000 or Alomar at $500,000? I guess Wade would rather have Polanco.
NHL Week in Review By: Ed Wasser
- Due to the holiday this will be a short entry this week. In fact it will just be a review of Fairway Miss' race on New Year's Eve. Just to remind everyone Fairway had a new jockey for this race, a kid named Ryan Barber. So Fairway was really up against it this race. This race had two horses in it that cost over $100,000 and one horse, Missile Bay, that cost $185,000 and had victories at Belmont Park (Fairway Miss cost $12,500). Whoever owns Missile Bay wasn't loading her up and driving all the way down from Long Island so she could lose so needless to say she would be tough. The day of the race I see that one of the $100,000 horses, St. John's Dress, is scratched. Also scratched was Lady Silverrod, the horse that finished 2nd in Fairway's last race. With those horses gone Fairway's odds went from 15-1 to 8-5. The only horse with better odds was Missile Bay going off at even money.
Before the race the trainer tells Ryan to stay off the rail whatever he does and don't panic if she's way behind at the half mile pole because she has late speed. So the race starts and Fairway breaks toward the back of the pack but she's relatively close to the leader. I'd say for the first half of the race she was a maximum of 7 lengths behind. I'm feeling super confidant at this point because I'm figuring she can turn on the gas after the turn. AND DOWN THE STRETCH THEY COME!!! Fairway picks up a few places but she's still in third place behind Missile Bay and a total long shot horse named Manhattan Appeal. All of a sudden Missile Bay runs out of gas and Fairway turns on the juice but it was a little too late. Fairway finished 2nd. Manhattan Appeal, the long shot, finished first and Missile Bay finished 3rd. All in all it was a nice effort but the cool part was when I went to the paddock after the race. I saw Ryan Barber and shook his hand and told him 'nice job' or something like that and he seemed upset. He shook his head and said 'next time man. Next time'. I thought that was cool. So as far as I'm concerned Ryan should be our jockey from here on out. He's easy to get because, since he was gone for a few years racing in Louisiana and West Virginia, only a few owners know him so he doesn't get a ton of mounts. Fairway is a 3 year old now and the amount of races she qualifies for is a lot greater. She should be racing again around January 15th. I'll keep you all up to date.
Please comment on this website if you wish (below)...
posted by Monday Morning Mehta at 10:34 AM
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