Author Archives: Kent Sterling

Geno Smith’s broken jaw the latest evidence of the NY Jets losing culture

by Kent Sterling

Some teams are supposed to lose, and the Jets are very near the top of that list.

New York Jets starting quarterback Geno Smith was punched in the face yesterday by a teammate, and his jaw was broken.

Smith will be out for the next six to 10 weeks and the guy who threw the punch is unemployed as the Jets try to gear up for a better season than the 4-12 stinker they crapped out last year.

While the Indianapolis Colts win 11 or more games a season like it’s the franchise’s birthright (10 times in the last 12 seasons), the Jets have won as many as 11 games just twice in the last 29 seasons.

Click here to follow Kent on Twitter

The difference between the Jets and the Colts runs far deeper than a locker room fracas over the $600 Smith owed the linebacker who threw the punch – it’s a matter of consistent focus and diligence which leads to a cultural excellence.

A teammate punching Colts quarterback Andrew Luck is beyond impossible to fathom. Not that the Colts don’t have their occasional disagreements, but protecting Luck on the field is such a relentlessly cited priority that a Colt attacking him off the field is inconceivable.

Either your team is about winning or it’s not. Either it’s a group of nearly 100 men this time of year committed to presenting their best selves, all with an laser focus trained on team success, or it isn’t.

For the Colts, three straight seasons that would represent the very best single season the Jets have produced since 1985 – minus a 12-4 1998 record – is not enough to earn Colts coach Chuck Pagano a contract extension. If the Jets won 11 times for three straight seasons, the Jets would erect a statue of the coach’s likeness outside team headquarters.

It’s not just the luck of owning the #1 pick in the NFL Draft at the exact moment franchise quarterbacks who embody and communicate a winning culture are available that has allowed the Colts to roll on with seemingly unending excellence, it’s a commitment to making the right decision at the right time, and avoiding an atmosphere where the wrong decision is made at the wrong time.

In 31 locker rooms, professional football players did not need to be reminded that breaking the jaw of their starting quarterback is a bad thing. With the Jets, no message could have been more important for first year coach Todd Bowles to impart. For winners, teaching the nuances that lead to success is a priority. For losers, the most obvious lessons go unlearned and unheeded.

Click here for a $1 comprehensive dental exam done by the best dentist in Indiana – Dr. Mike O’Neil at Today’s Dentistry

Some teams win and some teams lose. The reasons are always right there in front of us. Sometimes they aren’t as easily seen as Smith’s broken jaw, but they are there. Talent can play a part, but winning cultures win and losing cultures lose. Mediocre cultures win and lose in equal measure.

The Jets, Browns, and Rams are losers. The Colts, Steelers, and (gulp) Patriots are winners. That’s not physics, but it’s close. And the biggest difference isn’t talent. Talent isn’t enough.

Those teams and businesses that show up everyday committed to the same mission generally win. A broken jaw is stark evidence of a losing culture. Luck’s boundless enthusiasm for football and Pagano’s mantras of process over result are almost as obvious a predictor of success.

Ex-Minnesota AD Norwood Teague violated easy to follow rules of professional men seeking women

by Kent Sterling

If this guy drove a bus, do you think eyes would be drawn to him in a Minneapolis or St. Paul bar? Former Minnesota AD Norwood Teague should have understood what that means.

Norwood Teague is a bald, 50-ish guy who found professional success in collegiate athletics.

Until last Friday, he was the athletic director at the University of Minnesota. Teague resigned that day because some bizarre and aggressive texts he sent were shared with his employer and then the media.

Success and wealth have a way of corrupting the common sense that keeps most men from becoming scourges of society. Rule #1 for a guy is to know who you are, and what you have become should not be confused with who you are.

Click here to follow Kent on Twitter

Who you were in high school and college when economic status is flat and no one is impressed by wealth is who you are. If people liked you then, and women were attracted to you, that will likely continue. If you had difficulty attracting the attention of women in high school and college, it’s damn likely that will remain a constant in your life too.

As we mature some of us excel, amassing status and wealth. There is evidently an overwhelming compulsion among many who were not blessed with the physical and/or behavioral charms necessary to step up their game with hot women once wallets are fat and resumes are impressive.

This seems to be the case for Teague, who appears to have aggressively pursued a number of women uninterested in his masculine wiles, including a journalist for the Minneapolis Star-Ledger. Amelia Rayno is the paper’s beat reporter covering Minnesota’s basketball team, and the first person report she authored Sunday night of a night spent with Teague 20 months ago paints a picture of a guy with no idea how to communicate with or read the signs – like Rayno leaving a bar and hopping into a cab – a woman sends.

Here’s a very useful tip for guys seeking women – the women hold all the cards and they will determine the pace of play. Trying to assert your will over any woman – wife, girlfriend, stranger – is an exercise in futility.

Another sad but true rule is that if your name is Norwood, the cards are stacked against you with the ladies from birth.

And if you are in a position of power with a measure of fame, people will remember your behavior when you are at your best and at your worst. Journalists are especially good at taking notes and recalling oddly curious acts of social awkwardness.

Teague believed that because he became the athletic director at Minnesota people liked him and he mistook the attention his position commanded for actual charisma and physical giftedness. This had uh-oh written all over it from the start.

It bears mention that Teague has asserted that his acts of sexual harassment seemed to occur when he had been drinking. Another great rule for guys is that we do not become more attractive after drinking for a couple of hours, and the bravery that comes with intoxication almost always results in rejection – and for good reason.

Women know what they want – and who. Overtly extending yourself in their direction is a waste of time and energy. Just like an exclusive club, it’s always better to wait to be invited, especially if you are a 50 year-old bald guy interested in someone younger and hotter.

Click here for a $1 comprehensive dental exam done by the best dentist in Indiana – Dr. Mike O’Neil at Today’s Dentistry

And if you think the job title on your business card is your ticket to playing with the cool kids, you will be disappointed with the level of people it attracts.

Teague is the latest cautionary tale for men who missed out on the fun of popularity when young but now think they can make up for lost time and opportunities through professional achievement and prominence.

Norwood Teague forgot who he was, and thus lost what he became.

What I remember most about Frank Gifford is how he insulted Indianapolis

by Kent Sterling

Frank Gifford is remembered everywhere but Indianapolis as a hall of fame and excellent broadcaster

In 1997, Frank Gifford was ending his Monday Night Football career. His inclusion in the booth that year was a tip of the cap to the iconic broadcasts of the 1970s and 1980s when Monday Night Football was much more than a game.

On October 20th, Monday Night Football came to Indianapolis for an atrocious game between the Colts and the Buffalo Bills that the Colts would lose 9-6 to run their winless record to 0-7.

During the broadcast, ABC’s Al Michaels brought the game back from a commercial by remarking on the beauty of the city at night. Gifford felt compelled to add, “If Indianapolis is so beautiful, why are we trying so desperately to leave?”

Click here to follow Kent on Twitter

That one sentence became Gifford’s legacy with Colts fans, and underscores the need to mind your manners when speaking to a national audience. When millions of people can hear everything you say, insulting a city is less than prudent.

The next year, Gifford was relegated to hosting brief video packages because he could no longer be trusted to avoid saying the wrong thing. The Indy comment was bad enough. If Gifford was allowed to continue speaking live for three hours at a time, the result could be an ever worst moment that would define Gifford’s legacy nationally rather than in a town Gifford felt was entirely insignificant.

For New Yorkers and Californians, Indianapolis is Kansas City, Columbus, Louisville, Cincinnati, St. Louis, and Memphis. Those cities are interchangeable in their mundanity. For people who live in those cities, they are home. Insulting a man’s home is a quick way into the dog house.

It’s unfair to judge Gifford’s broadcasting legacy based upon that one comment, but when a very well paid broadcaster makes it clear that he or she feels imposed upon by being forced to visit a city, residents of that city remember. Gifford being the kind of jerk who would say such a thing was a topic of conversation for the next week as a terrible Colts season unfolded – a season so bad the Colts earned the number one pick in the NFL Draft.

Bill Polian was hired to replace Bill Tobin, and I don’t need to remind anyone who Polian took with that #1 pick, do I?

Gifford died yesterday, and my first thought was the comment he made about Indianapolis.

It’s unfair to judge a man’s 84-year life through one moment of unpleasant and self-indulgent honesty, but that was the first thing I recalled.

Throughout the rest of America, people remember Gifford as the sane piece of the Cosell, Meredith, and Gifford era of Monday Night Football. While Cosell and Meredith were hilarious and raw, Gifford steered the show back toward reason and football.

Click here for a $1 comprehensive dental exam done by the best dentist in Indiana – Dr. Mike O’Neil at Today’s Dentistry

But in Indianapolis, Gifford will be remembered for slamming their town. Hall of Fame player, incredibly successful broadcaster, celebrity who was loved by many in the media and by Giants fans, but here, he was the guy who couldn’t wait to get out of Indianapolis.

That’s the danger of sitting in front of a live microphone for decades. Eventually, something will pop out of our mouths that reveals us at our worst.

Unsolicited advice for Gregg Doyel on the day of his fight against Chris Lytle

by Kent Sterling

Given the choice between fight or flight when in a boxing ring with Chris Lytle, choose flight.

Indianapolis Star columnist Gregg Doyel is going to step in the ring tonight against boxer/mixed martial arts fighter Chris Lytle. It’s all for a great cause, the fight against Parkinson’s Disease being waged by Rock Steady Boxing, but that won’t make a right cross from Lyle hurt any less.

On my radio show Tuesday, I told Doyel I wanted to be Maish to his Mountain Rivera, a reference to “Requiem for a Heavyweight”, a 1962 film with Anthony Quinn and Jackie Gleason about the abuse and death of an aging fighter. Probably not the most uplifting boxing movie parallel I could have mentioned.

Doyel told me to put my career as a motivational speaker on hold.

Click here to follow Kent on Twitter

Might have been more appropriate to go to “Sailor Beware” with Jerry Lewis.

My advice to Doyel is RUN. Get on your bike and ride in circles until Lytle is to dizzy to throw hands. That’s not the way Doyel is built, and so he’s going to try to see how he measures up against the experienced and dangerous Lytle.

It’s not as though Doyel has never climbed into the squared circle and boxed. He has trained for a long time and enjoy three wins in three amateur fights. That means he has that annoying and dangerous voice in his head that calls for him to test his mettle.

Doyel is going to wonder whether he can stand toe to toe with a talented fighter and hold his own. Lyle is a nice man, so he’s not going to cause serious damage to Doyel, but if Gregg decides to get aggressive, maybe Chris will feel the need to put a little hot sauce on that jab.

There is a brave and courageous man inside all of us that wonders what we are capable of. Without it, man would never have gone to the Moon, sailed across the Atlantic, or gotten off the landing crafts at Omaha Beach. Also without it, we wouldn’t stick our tongues to frozen metal, light farts, or chase tornados.

Click here for a $1 comprehensive dental exam done by the best dentist in Indiana – Dr. Mike O’Neil at Today’s Dentistry

The question is whether Doyel is bravely confronting fear, or needlessly putting himself in harm’s way. The answer is both and neither. Both because whatever happens tonight is going to hurt, and neither because he’s doing it for a great cause.

Parkinson’s Disease is a scourge that attacks the nervous system, and the work Rock Steady does to help those afflicted is magical.

They deserve our support, and whether it’s blood lust or a willingness to support them that sends us to 6847 Hillsdale Court in Indianapolis for tonight’s event doesn’t matter because the cash all goes to the same place.

To buy tickets, click here.

Very early college hoops rankings love Indiana and ND, like Butler, loathe Purdue

by Kent Sterling

Whatever their rankings, I can’t wait to watch the Crossroads Classic at Bankers Life Fieldhouse on December 19th.

It’s the silly season for sports content providers, but that’s no excuse for ESPN being so wrong in assessing the quality of Indiana college basketball teams.

With only one major sports league playing meaningful games until after Labor Day and college/high school football being a couple of weeks away from their openers, writers are left with human interest and lists/rankings to drive page views.

Click here to follow Kent on Twitter

ESPN jumped into college basketball rankings three months prior to the season opener yesterday, and made a huge mistake. Purdue is nowhere among the top 25 teams, while Indiana was #14, Notre Dame #16, and Butler #23.

Indiana returns a bunch of guys who showed an ability to fill the bucket on one end and allow teams to fill it on the other. Those who either transferred or were ejected from the program were more problematic than productive, so it stands to reason their replacements – freshmen Thomas Bryant, O.G. Anunoby, and Juwan Morgan, and senior eligible transfer Max Bielfeldt – will represent an upgrade.

The big question for Indiana is how quickly Bryant can become a defensive force under the basket, and whether the guards can develop a greater sense of defensive recognition at a level to help the defense improve to mediocrity. If those two things happen, Indiana has a chance to crack the .500 mark for the first time since Cody Zeller, Victor Oladipo, and Jordan Hulls wore candy stripes.

Indiana is seriously overrated by ESPN – and it’s not the first time. Projecting a level of defense that will bring wins in bunches to Bloomington is impossible in August. We need to see it before we believe it after the past two seasons (16-22 in the Big Ten) with mostly the same roster.

The preseason schedule will provide an unusual test for Indiana after years of a parade of tomato cans into Assembly Hall. Duke, Creighton, perhaps Vanderbilt, perhaps Kansas, and Notre Dame will give Tom Crean and fans a great look at where the Hoosiers are prior to the Big Ten season.

Purdue is overlooked by ESPN despite having most of the boxes for excellence checked. Matt Painter has bigs in AJ Hammons and Isaac Haas, defensive intensity, and the experience of coming together as a team to resurrect a sense of pride in Boilermaker basketball.

Add to the returnees a freshman class with a great shooter in Ryan Cline, a great competitor in Grant Weatherford, and the first McDonald’s All American in a long, long time in Caleb Swanigan, and Matt Painter has reason to be as excited about the prospects for a Big Ten crown since Robbie Hummel first tore his ACL.

If Johnny Hill, the senior-eligible transfer who will be a purer point guard than Jon Octeus, can contribute at the same level Octeus did in 2014-2015, the Boilermakers could be special.

There are not 25 teams in college basketball than Purdue. I don’t think there are ten teams better than Purdue.

Butler is ranked just about where you might guess. Losing Alex Barlow and Kameron Woods will hurt, but returning Kellen Dunham, Roosevelt Jones, and Andrew Chrabasz while welcoming transfers Tyler Lewis and Jordan Gathers should put the Bulldogs somewhere in the first division of the Big East, and maybe better than that.

Chris Holtmann’s team might be a little better than ESPN predicts if Tyler Wideman and Kelan Martin continue to develop.

Notre Dame is likely to regress a bit, but not too much. Jerian Grant and Pat Connaughton are gone, and were certainly key components in the best team Mike Brey has plated for fans in his 15 seasons in South Bend. Zach Auguste, Steve Vasturia, and Demetrius Jackson are key returnees. The Irish will find their way.

Grant and Connaughton will be tough to replace in production, experience, and leadership, while the ACC looks stout. A return to the NCAA Tournament would be a solid result for the Irish.

Click here for a $1 comprehensive dental exam done by the best dentist in Indiana – Dr. Mike O’Neil at Today’s Dentistry

Rankings and lists can be fun, but a glaring error like the omission of Purdue among college hoops top 25 teams reduces their value.

Whether ESPN is right or wrong, the Crossroads Classic that will be played December 19th in Indianapolis at Bankers Life Fieldhouse among these four teams will be the most anticipated in the history of the event.

Whiny Patriots fans like Bill Simmons should shut the hell up and accept their disgrace

by Kent Sterling

Bill “Weak Sauce” Simmons – soon to be an easier to avoid annoyance on HBO.

Bill Simmons carps. It’s on his business card – “Bill Simmons – Carper-at-large”. Or it should be. So it was no surprise when he petulantly railed against Colts general manager Ryan Grigson yesterday for “squealing” on the Patriots for Deflategate..

Simmons attacked Grigson in a series of tweets that alternately expressed disgust over Grigson ratting out the Patriots for illegally deflating footballs prior to last season’s AFC Championship – and for trading a first round pick for running back Trent Richardson.

The Patriots cheat, but Grigson should be blamed. The Patriots cheat, so yelp about trading for Richardson. That’s the kind of self-righteous and gloriously inept banter upon which Simmons has built his career – a career that took him into and then right out of ESPN.

Click here to follow Kent on Twitter

Blaming Grigson for Deflategate is like blaming the cops who caught the burglars for Watergate, and blaming WTHR’s Bob Kravitz for reporting the story is like blaming Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward for covering the initial court hearing for the burglars.

The Patriots cheated – not exactly an aberration from their previous behavior. That’s the story. Their culture rewards winning above all else, and that rules are skirted or trampled in the process is of only collateral concern to owner Robert Kraft and coach Bill Belichick as they proudly raise Lombardi Trophies.

If Simmons really wanted to express righteous indignation, there are plenty of worthy targets in this mess – Tom Brady who at least knew of the practice of deflating the game balls, Belichick for creating the culture that led to the rule violation, or Kraft for acting like the father of an unrepentant criminal who refuses to accept the moral turpitude of his progeny.

But he chooses Grigson for his decision to alert Kravitz and for the Richardson trade. While that deal was a disaster and will certainly be a part of any reasonable discussion about Grigson’s reign as Colts GM, there have been other deals that counter it. Vontae Davis was acquired by Grigson in a similar trade, and it can be argued that Davis is every bit as important to the Colts defense as all-world quarterback is to the offense – well, kind of.

Here is what Simmons tweeted:

Ryan Sore Loser Grigson’s name popping up in DeflateGate again reminded me of this unintentionally hilarious SI piece http://www.si.com/vault/2015/04/20/106753868/the-prospector

“To Grigson, scouting is not just a skill. It’s a state of mind, and it doesn’t stop when the film does.” TRADED A 1ST FOR TRENT RICHARDSON.

Grigson thinks of his roster as a bonsai tree. “I am constantly pruning it,” he says. AGAIN, HE TRADED A FIRST FOR TRENT RICHARDSON.

“We have a mind-set where we want to build a dynasty,” Grigson says, “because we have the QB to do it.” BUT HE KEEPS BLOWING 1ST ROUND PICKS

Last point: Grigson squealed to NFL before AFC title game… then again DURING 2nd quarter

DeflateGate recap: Colts GM complains to NFL multiple times… NFL checks balls with most incompetent testing measures possible…

After game, damaging info is leaked to local Indy columnist and then a national columnist as well… And we are off…

Patriots fans like Simmons are reluctant to look in the mirror and see the darkness that nests in the souls of those who embrace the evil inherent in an ends justifies the means life philosophy, and that’s understandable.

Click here for a $1 comprehensive dental exam done by the best dentist in Indiana – Dr. Mike O’Neil at Today’s Dentistry

When tired of the internal argument anyone with a functional conscience must have when backing the morally bankrupt, people lash out at those who expose them, so Simmons mocks Grigson by bashing him over a single bad deal. That a smack at Bjorn Werner didn’t follow shows Simmons isn’t just an evil apologist, but a lazy Grigson critic too.

The reasons for Simmons exile from ESPN multiply every time he tweets. His show on HBO will be easier to avoid than his whining on ESPN, and for that sports fans everywhere other than New England can be thankful.

Indiana Basketball – Bleacher Report rips Tom Crean as ‘utterly loathed’ by Hoosiers fans

by Kent Sterling

There are Indiana fans who would like to see Tom Crean replaced, but that doesn’t mean that he is utterly loathed.

In a list predicting who the top 20 coaches in college basketball will be in 2025, Bleacher Report’s Kerry Miller mischaracterized the feelings of Indiana Basketball fans toward Tom Crean.

Crean didn’t make the list (he was honorable mention) which did include Purdue’s Matt Painter at #13, but somehow omitted Notre Dame’s Mike Brey. Brey’s omission reduces any respect that might be conferred upon this silly list, but that is a post for another day.

Click here to follow Kent on Twitter

I’m sure the list is getting massive clicks, and that’s what Bleacher Report is all about, but the sentence explaining Crean not being included mischaracterizes the feelings of Hoosiers toward its coach, “Tom Crean meets the criteria to be included, but the complete and utter loathing from much of the Hoosiers fanbase makes it hard to imagine he’ll still be there in 10 years.”

I have never heard any Indiana describe his or her feelings toward Crean as hatred or loathing. There are plenty who would like to see Crean replaced, but I’ve never heard one express personal loathing or acrimony toward Crean.

By all accounts, including my own, Crean is a good guy who earnestly tries to lead Indiana as best he can. He is a tireless worker who makes every effort to earn the respect and love of fans. Most respect him. Few love him.

But that doesn’t mean he’s loathed.

Loathing is personal. The distaste for Crean, among those who feel it, is not personal. It’s connected to the lofty standards applied to program by those who remember a time when championship banners were hung by teams filled with players from Indiana, Ohio, and Illinois. Names of the players weren’t on police blotters, but that was more about the Bloomington Police choosing to handle misbehavior of the books during a simpler time. Again, perhaps the subject of a post for another day.

Make no mistake, there is a significant portion of the Hoosiers fanbase that looks forward to a change in the leadership of their favorite basketball program, but the reasons are not personal. It’s about basketball acumen, recruiting strategy, and the sense that Crean doesn’t fit the mold of the Indiana coach as established by Bob Knight for 29 seasons.

Few want a churlish boor again as the Indiana coach, but many want a coach who knows the game as Knight did, can teach it in the way Knight did, and do it with Indiana-type players who understand the game at a high level. That’s an extreme standard that few can meet, but one thing many Indiana fans are sure of is that Crean falls short.

Click here for a $1 comprehensive dental exam done by the best dentist in Indiana – Dr. Mike O’Neil at Today’s Dentistry

There is no shame in that. Even for those Indiana fans who pine for Brad Stevens as the leader of the program, there is an understanding that Crean would be an outstanding coach for the vast majority of Division One programs.

Indiana fans’ expectations may be impossible to meet, but that failure does not deserve “loathing”, and Indiana fans understand that even if Bleacher Report’s Kerry Miller does not.

Just like Michael Corrleone told Sonny in The Godfather, “It’s not personal.”

Five questions about Indianapolis Colts heading into possible Super Bowl season

by Kent Sterling

This is the image Colts fans hope to see in Santa Clara on February 7, 2016.

The Indianapolis Colts report tomorrow to training camp in Anderson hoping the season for which they prepare ends at Super Bowl L in Santa Clara, California, on February 7th.

There is a lot of work to be done between now and then for the Colts to claim a spot ahead of the Patriots, Broncos, and Steelers, and questions abound about this unit led by the best young quarterback in the NFL.

Andrew Luck is the lynchpin – that thing that serves as the biggest point of differentiation between the Colts and everyone else. This is nothing new for the Colts, who were said to be a 2-14 team if anything ever happened to previous franchise quarterback Peyton Manning. That dire prediction was proven accurate in 2011 as the Colts tanked following Manning’s neck surgeries which sidelined him for that now forgotten season.

Click here to follow Kent on Twitter

Assuming Luck takes another step in the right direction during his fourth season, the Colts are still rife with question marks that need to be answered in the affirmative if they are to be pulled into championship level greatness by the splendid Luck.

5 – Can Phillip Dorsett provide a boost to special teams and make the Colts offense even more difficult to scheme against? Dorsett is fast – so fast that he is obviously faster among men paid a lot of money because they are fast – but can he be fast when the threat of being pummeled comes in every closing stride of an opposing safety? This is important for the 2015 season, but maybe even more important next year when the Colts might choose to invest elsewhere the $10M-$14M per season experts estimate T.Y. Hilton will command if Dorsett is seen as his equal.

4 – Will the aging mediocrity in the middle of the defense be exposed? The Colts have a bunch of okay in the five defensive positions in the middle of their defense. Art Jones can be a run stuffer when healthy, but if the DT can’t stay on the field or ages, he won’t help. Middle linebackers D’Qwell Jackson and Jerrell Freeman are good and earnest men who will try like hell, but neither is a dynamic game changer. Freeman can cover, but Jackson’s abilities in coverage have eroded. At safety, Mike Adams squeezed a lot of positive plays out of his 33-year-old body last season, but age catches up with us all eventually – just ask Reggie Wayne. Dwight Lowery, 29, was signed as a free agent, and might be the 2015 version of Adams.

3 – Is the pass rush going to change games? So much has to do with the ability of Robert Mathis to return to a level of health from a torn Achilles that allows him to get the edge of NFL tackles as he has throughout his career. Free agent acquisition Jason Cole, 32, is also a high risk/high reward addition. Bjorn Werner needs to reward the faith shown by GM Ryan Grigson when he was taken in the first round of the 2013 NFL Draft. Jonathan Newsome posted a team high 6.5 sacks in his rookie season. Was it a flash in the pan? Can Newsome take a step forward this year, or was 2014 a fluke? Lot of questions.

2 – Can elderly future hall of famers squeeze some championship level football out of their decaying carcasses? Frank Gore is a very young man relative to attorneys or physicians, but as a running back in the NFL, 32 is ancient. Andre Johnson is 34, but healthy and still capable of compelling his body into productivity through superior intellect and experience. While receivers Hilton, Dorsett, Donte Moncrief, and tight ends Dwayne Allen and Coby Fleener form a core of quality weapons, Johnson and particularly Gore will be asked to perform at a hall of fame level for yet another season as each tries to capture his first Super Bowl championship.

Click here for a $1 comprehensive dental exam done by the best dentist in Indiana – Dr. Mike O’Neil at Today’s Dentistry

1 – Will the offensive line be able to keep Andrew Luck clean and open holes for Gore? Gosder Cherilus was waived this month, and that means either the Colts felt Cherilus was completely incapable of blocking anybody, or they loved Jack Mewhort at right tackle. Maybe it was both. The center position was a source of worry last year as A.Q. Shipley, Jonotthan Harrison, and Khaled Holmes rotated through multiple starts. Shipley is gone, but who the #1 center will be is still uncertain. Left tackle is the only predictably solid spot with Anthony Castonzo. Joe Reitz, free agent acquisition Todd Herremans, Lance Louis, Donald Thomas, and Hugh Thornton are the candidates for guards. When you have five guards and two centers who might start, you either have great depth or vast mediocrity. Time will tell for the Colts.

Luck, cornerbacks, tight ends, and special teams are capable of great play for the Colts, but can the rest do enough to close the gap between what the Colts expectations are and that brutal 45-7 AFC Championship ass kicking still so fresh in the minds of the team and fans?

I guess there was only one meaningful question.

Welcome to real life, Bob Kraft – Deflategate brings justice beyond his control into life of billionaire

by Kent Sterling

Rich people need to take a deep breath once in awhile and understand that life will bring frustration for them as it will for most Americans.

Patriots owner Robert Kraft enjoys a life that is 99.9% wonderful, but he continues to carp about the 0.1% that is like the rest of us.

Click here to follow Kent on Twitter

New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft was mindbogglingly pious and entitled is his outrage yesterday over the penalties that NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell upheld for his fair-haired, perfect, adopted son Tom Brady, and it served as a reminder that the really rich among us simply assume that everything in the world will conform to their sense of justice – which is by definition perverted by their own largesse.

Among Kraft’s absurd and self-righteous declarations:

“I was wrong to put my faith in the league.”
“I, first and foremost, need to apologize to our fans because I truly believe what I did in May — given the actual evidence of the situation, and the league’s history on discipline matters — would make it much easier for the league to exonerate Tom Brady. Unfortunately I was wrong,”
“Six months removed from the AFC Championship Game, the league still has no hard evidence of anybody doing anything to tamper with the psi levels of footballs. I continue to believe and unequivocally support Tom Brady.”
“I’ve come to the conclusion that this was never about doing what was fair and just. Back in May, I had to make a difficult decision that I now regret.”
“Yesterday’s decision by commissioner Goodell was released in a similar manner, under an erroneous headline that read, ‘Tom Brady destroyed his cellphone.’ This headline was designed to capture headlines across the country and obscure evidence regarding the tampering of air pressure in footballs.
“It intentionally implied nefarious behavior and minimized the acknowledgement that Tom provided the history of every number he texted during that relevant time frame. We had already provided the league with every cellphone of every non-NFLPA employee that they requested, including head coach Bill Belichick.”
“I was willing to accept the harshest penalty in the history of the NFL for an alleged ball violation, because I believed it would help exonerate Tom.”
“Given the facts, evidence and laws of science that underscore this entire situation, it is completely incomprehensible to me that the league continues to take steps to disparage one of its all-time great players and a man for whom I have the utmost respect.”
“Personally, this is very sad and disappointing to me.”

Wow, what a steaming pile of disgruntled indignation. The Reader’s Digest version of Kraft’s meltdown is, “Because I believe in Tom Brady’s innocence, everyone else should too. People always seat me at the head of the table and listen to what I say while nodding vigorously in the affirmative, but this time people outside the fans in New England aren’t.

“That means the NFL and media must have conspired to manipulate facts that do not comport to my beliefs in an effort to persecute Tom Brady and thus annoy me.”

Humility does not come easily to people of incredible and outrageous means. The universe revolves around them, and any bad that comes is always part of a conspiracy to directly cause them harm. The good is just what life is supposed to hand them because their money says they are due all they covet.

Click here for a $1 comprehensive dental exam done by the best dentist in Indiana – Dr. Mike O’Neil at Today’s Dentistry

Well, welcome to real life, Bob. Just because you are on top of the mountain doesn’t mean the stench from the crap that relentlessly rolls downhill won’t reach your nostrils on occasion.

Life isn’t fair for anyone, but only rich patriarchal schlubs have the temerity to blather incessantly about the very few times a business episode out of their direct control wobbles a bit and brings a little pain.

Like we needed another reason to root against the Patriots.

If Tom Brady had been Richard Nixon, he would have burned the tapes

by Kent Sterling

Tom Brady will sit the first four games of the 2015 season unless a federal court intervenes due to clever legal tactics being argued by clever men in expensive suits.

Cheaters are always compared to our nation’s 37th president who resigned in disgrace after cheating throughout the 1972 presidential election process that resulted in his re-election.

At first, Richard Nixon consistently denied that cheating occurred, and later that he had any knowledge of whatever cheating had been done. Alexander Butterfield dropped the bomb to the Senate Watergate Committee when he testified to the existence of a secret taping system that recorded all Oval Office conversations, and the jig was up.

Click here to follow Kent on Twitter

Instead of burning the tapes after Butterfield’s revelation, Nixon protected them in the interest of history and his legacy. Ironically, I guess, Nixon’s legacy as a punchline was assured by the audio that is contained on those tapes.

I don’t know how many history courses Tom Brady took while at the University of Michigan, but destroying his cell phone is the equivalent of what would have been Nixon’s morally bankrupt but pragmatically correct decision to burn those tapes – destroying the evidence that removed all doubt of his guilt.

Did the NFL behave poorly in leaking the information about the destruction of the cell phone to ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith? Of course. No one has laid claim to anything resembling moral high ground in this ridiculous pageant of moral indignity and bankrupcy. Is Brady’s comment released this morning on his Facebook page absurd in its claims that neither he nor anyone in the Patriots organization did anything wrong? If the two putzes who handled the footballs as employees of the Patriots did nothing wrong, why are they no longer associated with the team?

Jim McNally and equipment assistant John Jastremski were the two boobs who handled the balls, and McNally reportedly took the balls into the men’s room on his way to the field prior to the AFC Championship game against the Indianapolis Colts. That violates NFL protocol, and allows for speculation as to what happened in there. That is a big something wrong.

This sordid episode has been mismanaged on every level by both the NFL and Patriots. Righteous indignation abounds on both sides, and the truth be damned. Everyone has their suspicions but no one has a smoking gun.

Brady uses phrasing like, “I did nothing wrong.” Wrong is a subjective standard that can be employed based upon the moral compass of the author. What Brady doesn’t say is that he was not aware of violation of the rules regarding the inflation of the game balls – or at least I haven’t seen it if he did.

Goodell is trying to appear serious about the principle of fair play and enforcing a level playing field in every NFL game – especially the game being played to determine who earns a spot in the Super Bowl. The NFL has appeared to be far more interested in the court of public opinion than reality as many players have wandered far outside the realm of decent behavior. A suspension is issued, then rescinded of lessened. Wild vacillation in penalties came because of media and fan outrage, so the NFL has appeared too sensitive and utterly lacking in internal resolve.

Click here for a $1 comprehensive dental exam done by the best dentist in Indiana – Dr. Mike O’Neil at Today’s Dentistry

In this instance, the NFL held firm, sort of. There are reports that the league offered to cut Brady’s penance to two games if Brady admitted to some level of culpability in or knowledge of the deflation of the balls. Brady has been unwavering in his claims of total innocence, and has authorized the NFLPA to appeal the suspension in federal court.

Legal yoga is being practiced on both sides to assure victory, but no one is interested in justice. It’s pathetic, and counter to the reason why people love sports in the first place. Right and wrong matters on the field, court, and rink. Sports is a meritocracy. More often than not, the team that deserves to win wins. By definition winners should have won because they did win.

In conference and court rooms, that is not the case. The victory goes to the clever, and both Brady and Goodell are guilty of being more clever than right.

At the end of this circus, no one will emerge as a winner because neither side is worthy of victory. Cynicism is the only winner here.