Author Archives: Kent Sterling

At Alabama, football staff gets rich while athletes get a $50,000 education

by Kent Sterling

Cha-ching for Saban. For the players – back to class.

At the University of Alabama, head football coach Nick Saban is paid over $7,000,000 per year. His assistant coaches earn an additional $5.2 million. The support staff makes another $2.9 million.

Players get an education worth $12,591 (in-state) per year, and if they exercise some initiative to monetize their brand, the NCAA suspends them from participating. The majority of that $12,591 is a pass through expense for which the university bears no true burden.

Ticket sales for Alabama football games account for $36.2 million. Licensing brings in an additional $11.2 million. The increase in annual revenue for Alabama athletics from 2005-2013 – $81,489,358.

Click here to learn about the best bands and teams

Those are the raw numbers as compiled and reported by CBS Sports Jon Solomon, and they speak to the growing chasm in earnings for the universities/coaching staffs, and student-athletes.

Somehow, the perception of coaches is that of reasonable and giving educators who are mentors first and earners second, while players are scurrilous and money-grubbing rascals who swap autographs for tattoos and food stamps when they aren’t shoplifting groceries.

A Michigan fan tweeted to me last night that Jim Harbaugh’s decision to sign as the new football coach with the University of Michigan wasn’t about the money. Sure it wasn’t. That’s why he’s going to make $8-million plus per year. That’s damn nice of Harbaugh. What a guy!

Harbaugh’s return to Michigan because of love for his alma mater is a heart warming act of generosity is really the story people in Michigan are buying?

The reason Harbaugh agreed to become the coach at Michigan is most likely that no NFL team was willing to step up and pay at the same level Michigan is. To believe otherwise is invests hope that cash is not the overriding priority for coaches and schools. All evidence points to the contrary.

Schools continue to oppose paying players not because of some pie in the sky ideal of amateurism and purity. It exists because schools like keeping all the cash they can.

Coaches and administrators aren’t fools. They know where the cash for paying players will come from – their pockets. And before we start to blame the NCAA – they haven’t got a damn thing to do with it.

The NCAA is not an oversight organization. It’s comprised of member schools run by administrators who are the very people who want to keep the money the profit center of football and men’s basketball provides. NCAA president Mark Emmert isn’t empowered to make unilateral changes to the financial schematics of college sports. Emmert acts on members’ wishes, and those wishes right now are to perpetuate the myth that somehow players not being paid is about decency rather than greed.

Click here to read about the best dentist in Indiana offering exams for $1 – Dr. Mike O’Neil of Today’s Dentistry

Paying people commensurate to their value is the construct that propels wealth in America, and it is embraced in every business but college athletics. Sadly, that greed even extends to young men who seek to profit from the value of their own brand, and why is that? The $10+ million Alabama reaps because of licensing is a pretty good explanation.

Public school bureaucrats can yelp all they like about the Pandora’s Box of unintended consequences that allowing athletes to sign autographs for cash would uncrate, but the sad truth is that the answer here is as it always is – people like to hold onto the cash they have and expect to have.

Football at Alabama is little more than a developmental wing of the NFL. To assert the availability of an education is compensation enough for those athletes assumes they deserve no level of self-determination whatsoever, and they should simply be happy with the opportunity to spend four years of debt free living on a college campus surrounded by beautiful women and outstanding trainers and facilities.

I’ll buy that as soon as coaches are paid like professors, whose average pay is $97,800 at Alabama. Pretty decent salary. The reason that isn’t that good enough for Saban is the same as why tuition/room-and-board shouldn’t be good enough for Amari Cooper and Landon Collins.

Jim Harbaugh signs to coach Michigan, and I feast on my own words

by Kent Sterling

Jim Harbaugh fills all of the qualities Michigan fans want in a coach, and most that fans of those who hate Michigan want too. It’s a win-win!

There have been a few times among a long line of accurate predictions where I have erred, and Jim Harbaugh agreeing to become the head coach of the Michigan Wolverines has made me as wrong as I have ever been about anything.

To the end, I said over and over that until the ink dried on the contract teams in the NFL would continue their efforts to woo him, and someone would come with a crazy offer that would keep Harbaugh from going to Michigan. Tonight, the Detroit News is reporting that the ink on the deal is dry.

Finally, I have to admit I am wrong.

Click here to learn about the best bands and teams

Harbaugh is known as a pragmatic and cagey negotiator, and I assumed that the leak of the Michigan offer (six-years, $49 million) was Harbaugh’s effort to establish a bidder for his services and give NFL teams a base level for the bidding.

After all, Harbaugh’s San Francisco 49ers qualified for three straight NFC Championship games before this season’s 8-8 record. There aren’t many coaches in the history of the NFL that can boast a four year run the likes of which Harbaugh just concluded.

Harbaugh leaves the NFL with the fifth highest winning percentage in the history of the league, behind only Guy Chamberlain (who coached four different teams during the 1920s), John Madden, Vince Lombardi, and George Allen.

That the 49ers decided to move on without Harbaugh is inexplicable. That 31 other teams allowed him to go to Ann Arbor is insanity. The Bears are going to hire someone who will succeed at a higher level than Harbaugh? Doubt it.

Factor into his one failure of a season injuries to Patrick Willis, Navarro Bowman, and Glenn Dorsey, and suspension of Aldon Smith and it’s not hard to figure out how 8-8 might have happened.

Michigan got themselves a hell of a football coach, Harbaugh got paid in bulk, and the Big Ten became relevant again as a football conference. The drama of the upcoming blow by handshakes between Harbaugh and Ohio State coach Urban Meyers will give fans something to talk about for entire offseason. It’s a win-win-win!

Does anyone believe Harbaugh is going to hide his disdain for all opponents?

Today was a great day for Michigan fans and the Big Ten – as good a day as the news of the hiring of Mike Riley at Nebraska signified a step sideways if not backwards for that storied program.

The prodigal son returns to Ann Arbor, and relevance returns to the Big Ten. That winning at Michigan is damn near impossible is a topic for another day. This is a time of hope for those who enjoy a little college football talk that doesn’t include rants from haywire SEC honks with delusions of importance.

My being wrong is a bitter pill to swallow, but it’s well worth the fun and abrasiveness the irascible Harbaugh will bring to college football played north of the Mason-Dixon Line.

Can’t wait!

Marc Trestman among those fired; Why Black Monday rarely comes to Indianapolis

by Kent Sterling

Marc Trestman was fired this morning – not because the Bears failed to win in 2014, but because they failed to manage expectations.

Roughly 25% of NFL and NBA coaches are fired at the end of a typical season, but that almost never happens in Indianapolis because franchises here are well run by consistent, prudent, and mostly trusting owners.

The Indianapolis Colts have enjoyed a rarely achieved level of consistent quality and results while the Indiana Pacers continue to build and rebuild without overreaction to fleeting struggles.

The last time a coach was fired by the Colts was Jim Caldwell after the 2011 season when a broom swept the front office clean – including Bill Polian, the longtime czar of the football operations. The Pacers last changed leadership when Jim O’Brien was asked to pack his things almost four years ago.

It happens a little bit more often for the Pacers as evidenced by the longest coaching tenure in the history of the franchise being 328 games – or four full seasons (achieved by Slick Leonard, Jack McKinney, Larry Brown, and Rick Carlisle).

Why is Indianapolis immunized to the perils of Black Mondays in their various sports and teams? Fans here don’t allow themselves to be duped into false hope, which leads to irrational expectations, followed by failure.

Colts fans understand what this team is – good, but flawed. They are able to win the AFC South, but not good enough to represent the AFC in the Super Bowl. Because the Colts have played in a couple of Super Bowls over the past decade, they know what a potential championship team looks like, and this isn’t it.

While the expectation is that the Colts will beat the Cincinnati Bengals, only the most optimistic devotee entertains the notion they will have any chance to compete against the New England Patriots in Foxboro the following weekend.

Way too many flaws for anyone to hold coach Chuck Pagano accountable for not getting to the AFC Championship Game. Just three years ago, the Colts had the worst record in the NFL, and three straight 11-5 seasons since beats the hell out of what has happened in Atlanta, New York (with both NFL teams), Chicago, Tampa, Nashville, Jacksonville, Oakland, and many other outposts where better than what was delivered was hoped for.

The Pacers are a bit different. After two straight trips to the Eastern Conference Finals, Paul George suffered a broken shin bone that will cost him the entire 2014-2015 season. How can Frank Vogel be expected to overcome the loss of the team’s superstar? Even a 35-win season, while disappointing, would be well within the range of tolerable outcomes for Pacers fans.

The key to holding on to a coaching job is managing expectations.

Bing Crosby was one of the most popular singers and actors in the 20th Century, and he always negotiated for the lowest billing possible because he never wanted to be blamed for a failure. Coaches should learn from Crosby. Tell the media that the team they coach will be lucky to win 30% of its games. That may piss off management trying to hype the product to season ticket customers, but it will save jobs.

Not meeting expectations is the crime for which coaches pay, and in Chicago where coach Marc Trestman and general manager Phil Emery were fired this morning, the primary motivation for the change was that the media and fans in Chicago expected a playoff run out of a group incapable of winning because of the contract awarded to quarterback Jay Cutler.

Click here for info on the incredible $1 dental exam being offered by the best dentist in Indiana – Dr. Mike O’Neil at Today’s Dentistry

There was no chance for this group to thrive in an NFC North that includes very good teams like Green Bay and Detroit. Because of a contract that paid Cutler more than any other NFL player in 2014, Chicagoans believed that he could play at that level. Sadly for Trestman and Emery, Cutler was still Cutler throughout the 2014 season, and now Trestman and Emery are looking for work.

Colts and Pacers fans are more reasonable than Bears fans, and so change doesn’t occur often here.

This is not true in Bloomington among Hoosiers fans who crave banners in Bloomington, which may be bad news for Tom Crean unless he can find a way to hang one soon.

Indiana loses to G-town in OT – finish non-conference at 10-3; future far from clear

by Kent Sterling

Indiana’s Yogi Ferrell and James Blackmon enjoy a moment of revelry during an afternoon that ended badly for the Indiana Hoosiers.

Indiana Basketball continues to tantalize and taunt in equal measure.

Talent and scheme show stretches that give fans reason for hope, then moments of borderline incompetence have fans on their feet screaming at the TV or court.

Is Indiana a team on the come, or are they as mediocre as many thought when the season started? Does coach Tom Cream know what he’s doing, or is he being bailed out by sporadically excellent shooting?

Click here to follow Kent on Twitter

If the Hoosiers finished the non-conference portion of their season 12-1, we would suspect they are capable of a return to the NCAA Tournament, and then with shooters like they have maybe a run to the Sweet Sixteen or beyond would be more than a dream.

If Indiana was 8-5, fans would know the exact opposite.

But at 10-3, the season could still fall in either direction or continue to hover in the middle.

Today’s overtime loss to Georgetown at Madison Square Garden was as vexing as the season itself. Indiana looked good for stretches, confused during others, and resilient at the end of regulation. Georgetown had difficulty attacking Indiana offensively for stretches, and made IU look weak during others.

Of the Hoosiers 87 points, 83 were scored by James Blackmon (22), Yogi Ferrell (27), Robert Johnson (11), and Troy Williams (23). That lack of depth will make them easy to defend when Big Ten play starts, or will it? Maybe the overall excellence of Ferrell and Blackmon, the burgeoning athleticism and productivity of Williams, and the steadiness of Johnson will be vexing for opponents.

Expectations are unclear for the Hoosiers and their fans, and maybe that works to Tom Crean’s advantage. If people felt IU should finish in the top five of the Big Ten and they fell short, fans would call for Crean’s head. If there was no reason to believe something good could happen, fans would say that Crean was not delivering on the promise to restore relevance to the university’s signature marketing unit.

Somewhere in between, nobody knows exactly what to think. Is the program showing promise or backsliding? It’s impossible to tell.

Indiana exists somewhere on the success continuum between collapse and triumph, but exactly where is beyond our ability to pinpoint.

After wins against Butler, Pitt, and SMU, and losses to Georgetown, Louisville, and Eastern Washington, I am baffled. After watching Michigan lose to NJIT and Eastern Michigan, Michigan State drop one to the perpetual road dogs from Texas Southern, Nebraska lose to Incarnate Word, Hawaii, and Rhode Island, and Purdue fail against Gardner-Webb and North Florida, I am bamboozled by the entire Big Ten.

Indiana’s Big Ten schedule appears to be kind in that the Hoosiers will only be required to play Wisconsin (the prohibitive favorite to win the conference) one time and get two swipes at bottom-feeder Rutgers. But they also must play #15 and #21 Maryland and Ohio State twice and Michigan only once. Again, an unclear future awaits.

The way the schedule lays out, a 5-7 start to the Big Ten season for Indiana is possible, but then because the Hoosiers’ last six games are vs. Minnesota, vs. Purdue, @Rutgers, @Northwestern, vs. Iowa, and vs. Michigan State, they could still finish 11-7 – which would certainly cause additional confusion for a fan base fond of clarity.

For those looking to this website – one that takes pride in providing concrete answers – I apologize for not having a clear and definitive resolution. Indiana Basketball is a stew where one bite can be satisfying and delicious while the next is putrid. Today’s game was a perfect microcosm.

If clarity is going to come for Indiana fans objectively evaluating this program and its future course, it won’t be before March.

Indiana Pacers – George Hill comes back and Pacers just look different in win

by Kent Sterling

George Hill was back, and so were my eyeballs from the beginning to the end of last night’s win.

NBA Basketball is a weird game. Paying close attention is sometimes difficult. My mind wanders when it appears that the minds of the players wander.

Last night, I watched the Indiana Pacers beat the New Orleans Pelicans from start to finish because they appeared to be engaged for the full 48 minutes.

George Hill came back from injury to lead the Pacers with 15 points, but his scoring total was only circumstantial evidence of his contribution.

Click here to follow Kent on Twitter

There was a defensive intensity and awareness that didn’t otherwise exist very often in the first 28 games of the season that Hill missed. Sometimes you don’t know what was missed or how much you missed it until it returns.

Hill is like that. He’s the ingredient that your mother-in-law leaves out of her marinara sauce recipe because she wants her son to love her’s best. Hill is the agitator that makes the Pacers congeal – or at least that was the case last night.

Of the five starters in the past two Eastern Conference Finals teams for the Pacers (Roy Hibbert, David West, Paul George, lance Stephenson and Hill), Hill was the fifth guy in the minds of the media and fans. Last night, Hill showed what smart basketball people have known for a long time – Hill is the key to the Pacers success.

When Hill attacks offensively, all of a sudden everything works in Frank Vogel’s offense. When he’s not around or lays back a little, the Pacers stagnate and become an easy beat.

The Pacers shot exactly 50% (39-78) last night as they sent the Pelicans home with a loss. All nine Pacers who played filled important roles. Each scored between six and 15 points while taking between five and 13 shots. Hilbert had seven blocks, and the team assisted on 24 field goals. Lavoy Allen was a steady pro as always with eight points and seven boards.

The Pacers are still without Paul George, a potentially elite talent who might be the piece of the puzzle to make them a very dangerous out in the East when he returns, but today they are a competent team with the parts necessary to compete with anyone.

With Hill, they have that ingredient that makes the ingredients harmoniously co-exist. Now they can expect to compete on a nightly basis, and fans won’t know exactly why, but they will be able to watch the Pacers from tipoff to buzzer most nights.

Click here to read about the best dentist in Indiana offering exams for $1 – Dr. Mike O’Neil of Today’s Dentistry

At 10-19, the Pacers have dug themselves a hole from which it will be hard to climb, but with sad sack opponents like Detroit (4x), the NY Knicks (4x), Brooklyn (3x), and Philadelphia (3x) comprising better than 25% of their remaining schedule, the Pacers might just be able to get to the eight-seed.

Could Hill really be that important to the success of the Pacers? Could it be that he’s missed in equal proportion to the potentially stellar Paul George? I think so, and the Pacers better hope so.

I like watching the Pacers, and now my mind is much less likely to drift because theirs won’t.

It’s a win-win.

Big Ten Basketball falters while Indiana succeeds, so questions about Tom Crean’s future are quieted

by Kent Sterling

Tom Crean may not be THE guy, but even his harshest critics have to admit he has done a good job this season.

Last night, Purdue and Nebraska lost to teams they were supposed to beat in Gardner-Webb and Hawaii. Indiana beat a team it was supposed to by 20 points – the inept Privateers of New Orleans.

Actually, I haven’t seen New Orleans play, so calling them inept is uninformed commentary. Hard to blame me when New Orleans has played teams like Pensacola Christian College and Crowley’s Ridge (which I would have to guess is a place some guy named Crowley once lived). As much basketball as I have watched, I have never heard of those schools, so I’m willing to guess they are a bad basketball team.

Click here to follow Kent on Twitter

The point is that Indiana has done what it is supposed to do while much of the rest of the Big Ten has foundered, and because of that the questions about Tom Crean’s future are being answered with less dire predictions of imminent doom.

Through yesterday, Big Ten programs have played 18 games against ranked opponents and won only four. Indiana is the only team with multiple wins against ranked teams. Granted, those opponents were ranked #22 and #23 at the time the Hoosiers played them, but they were ranked.

Yep, the Big Ten is 4-14 against ranked teams, but the most damning aspect of the Big Ten’s non-conference record are the losses like those Purdue and Nebraska suffered last night to teams from lesser conferences.

Purdue was bettered by North Florida, Nebraska lost to Incarnate Word, Michigan lost to the New Jersey Institute of Technology and Eastern Michigan, and Michigan State took an OT loss against perpetual road victim Texas Southern. Seems like a night rarely goes by where a Big Ten team isn’t humbled by an opponent that shows up only for a paycheck.

Indiana lost to Eastern Washington, but among all the bizarre losses for the basketball conference formerly known as America’s best, this was among the least surprising. Eastern Washington is no joke this year.

Just to solidify my point that the Big Ten sucks, here are where Big Ten programs are ranked by RPI with some of the schools that have beaten Big Ten teams thrown in for comparison:

10. Wisconsin

14. Northern Iowa

24. Maryland

35. Penn State

36. Illinois

37. Eastern Washington

53. Ohio State

55. Incarnate Word

68. Michigan State

83. Gardner-Webb

84. Minnesota

87. Iowa

95. Indiana

102. Texas Southern

105. Nebraska

113. Rutgers

117. Northwestern

139. Michigan

141. Purdue

The ACC has four teams in the top 13. The formerly humble SEC has four in the top 25. The Pac-12 has three in the top 25. The Big East? Four in the top 26.

Indiana fans are not thrilled with the Hoosiers under Tom Crean, but given the schedules who among the Big Ten coaches would you say has done a better job? Even Wisconsin with St. Bo has played a soft schedule. They lost to Duke (RPI #5) and have Green Bay (RPI # 28), Boise State (RPI #46) and Oklahoma (RPI #32) as their best wins.

Crean has a team with limited size and no seniors playing good basketball. There are defensive lapses, but if the Hoosiers beat Georgetown on Saturday they will move on to conference play with an 11-2 record. Not many other than Dan Dakich saw that coming.

I was among those who believed that Purdue had taken a quantum leap into renewed relevance with wins over Mizzou, NC State, and BYU. Matt Painter, vigorous rejuvenator of the Boilermakers? Not so much at 8-5.

Click here to read about the best dentist in Indiana offering exams for $1 – Dr. Mike O’Neil of Today’s Dentistry

Crean is never going to silence critics who feel he is a bad fit as coach of the Hoosiers, but it’s disingenuous to look at this team and not say that he’s done a very nice job of preparing them for a season that many felt could be a train wreck.

Whispers about Brad Stevens coming to Indiana will continue because there is no way to silence them, but accompanying those whispers should be an admission that Crean is not some nut who fell off a Lawrence County stack of hay into that job.

He is a good coach. Is he THE coach to lead Indiana back to national prominence? Valid question. But whether or not he can coach at a level with Richard Pitino, Tim Miles, and Matt Painter is beyond dispute.

After a miserable day in Dallas, the Indianapolis Colts appear a long shot to win beyond first round of playoffs

by Kent Sterling

Andrew Luck was under siege yesterday as he failed to enjoy the worst statistical game of his career.

So much to write about the Indianapolis Colts, so little time.

The Colts confirmed what they are – again – in a humiliating loss in Dallas. They are incapable of losing to the worst, but equally unlikely to beat the best.

Click here to follow Kent on Twitter

Colts general manager Ryan Grigson has put together a good team – mediocrity is everywhere but at quarterback, special teams, and cornerback. Because of injuries, the right side of the offensive live was terrible yesterday.

I’m a big fan of hope, so shutting the door on the possibility that the Colts might qualify for the Super Bowl is not something I’m prepared to do, but for the Colts to be competitive in Foxboro a lot would have to change for both the Colts and Patriots.

Yesterday, the Colts ran for one yard against a team that allows an average of 103.1 yards per game. Andrew Luck posted his worst career passer rating (41.7) against a very average pass defense (23rd in the NFL), but it wasn’t all his fault. Receivers dropped ball after ball and the left side of the Cowboys defensive line faced only passive resistance on their way to harass Luck.

According to profootballfocus.com, right tackle Xavier Nixon graded out as a -8.8. The grades on that site are not perfect, but I’ve never seen a -8.8 for a tackle, and whatever the skill level of the grader, a -8.8 shows the historically inept pass blocking that caused Luck so much trouble.

Oddly, Luck’s two interceptions came on plays where the Cowboys were unable to get near him. They also came after the game’s result had already been decided.

If the Colts want to compete for a title, cleaning up turnovers and penalties are a great place to start. Another three giveaways yesterday raised the number for the last five games to 15, and 31 for the season. Their turnover margin is -6, which ranks 23rd in the NFL. The penalty yesterday against linebacker Jerrell Freeman for taunting that gave the Cowboys a first down when they would have otherwise punted on the first drive of the game was brutal, and put in motion events that led to 42-7 misery.

The call against Freeman was questionable, but good players for championship teams don’t put referees in a position to make a questionable call. They make good plays appear routine and celebrate after the game.

The DNA of the Colts through the first two years of the Grigson/Pagano regime was to avoid beating themselves while making enough plays to win. This season has been different. They are good enough to play sloppy football against bad teams (Jacksonville, Houston, Tennessee, NY Giants, Cleveland, and Washington) and win, so they do. They are not good enough to indulge in lackadaisicalism and beat more talented teams, so they have lost to Denver, Pittsburgh, New England, and Dallas. In the middle are Cincinnati, Baltimore, and Philly, with whom they are 2-1.

What will be interesting is the level of patience fans are willing to allow if the Colts bow out early in the playoffs again. Luck is seen as an elite quarterback with a mediocre offensive line (minus Anthony Castonzo), and the defense, minus Vontae Davis, is filled with a bunch of okay players too.

Click here to read about the best dentist in Indiana offering exams for $1 – Dr. Mike O’Neil of Today’s Dentistry

It won’t take long for the fans who are staunchly in Grigson’s corner to start yelling about how any fourth grader would have drafted Luck, and without him this Colts team would be 3-12 heading into the final weekend of the season.

The truth is a little more nuanced that that. Finding Freeman in the CFL was big, and drafting wideouts T.Y. Hilton and Donte Moncrief in the third round were both huge gets.

Even more important is owner Jim Irsay’s disposition toward years peeling from Luck’s career without postseason success. The odds of lucking into a third franchise quarterback virtually without interruption is an impossibility, so each year carries additional importance.

This all assumes that the Colts continue limping as they have over the past few weeks. If they recapture the level of play during the playoffs they (and we) enjoyed from mid-September to mid-October, ignore everything I wrote here.

And remember, fan bases for 20 teams would swap spots with you in a second.

Bud Selig’s $6M annual retirement salary an insult to logic and the middle class

by Kent Sterling

“What? Huh? Six-million? Oh, okay. Yeah, I heard that!”

Millions of Americans scrimp to stuff a little cash in a 401K so they don’t need to panhandle in their old age. Soon-to-be former baseball commissioner Bud Selig has no use nor need for a 401K as Major League Baseball is going to pay the 80-year old $6-million each year in perpetuity for being the former commissioner.

“Hard to fathom” doesn’t scratch the surface of my bewilderment upon reading about the Selig retirement pseudo-annuity.

Severance is a simple concept. An executive gets bounced, and because managers have empathy for one another, checks are cut to lessen the blow of separation from a company.

Click here to follow Kent on Twitter

But we are supposed to save for retirement – especially when the guy saying goodbye has “earned” in the neighborhood of $20-million per year for many years, as Selig has.

It’s painful to admit this, but I’m dumb enough that the guilt over being paid $6-million annually for the rest of my life would cause me to refuse the cash. I wouldn’t be able to cash the check. If I ever had a job that paid me $20 million per year – even if my skill set was so unique and impossible to replace that a business would collapse without me – I would never be able to accept it.

I don’t think I’m telling tales out of school by suggesting that Selig’s contributions to baseball reflected only reasonable competence. The expansion of the media caused the explosion of rights fees which led to baseball becoming insanely profitable, not any stroke of genius proffered by Selig.

Right place, right time, lucky guy.

If baseball is so flush with cash it can afford to pay it’s former commissioner $6-million per year to sit at home and ruminate over the questionable implementations of programs like instant replay, the all-star game deciding home field advantage for the World Series, the strange end to the strike-shortened 1994 season, and PED testing and consequences for failure that came a decade too late.

Click here to hear about the best dentist in Indiana offering no-strings dental exams for $1 – Dr. Mike O’Neil of Today’s Dentistry

Sometimes we kid about a guy so mediocre at his gig that he should be paid one-third of his salary not to show up for work anymore. Maybe baseball owners saw that as a fun punch line to a mediocre joke with Selig as the only member of the audience laughing.

Not buying Jim Harbaugh’s six-year, $49 million offer from Michigan – or his interest

by Kent Sterling

Jim Harbaugh is not considering Michigan – he’s negotiating.

For an in-demand guy trying to get hired as a coach, setting the price is easy – leak an offer that may or may not be real for a job in which you have no interest.

Jim Harbaugh and the San Francisco 49ers are going to part ways after this season. Under contract for another year, either Harbaugh is going to be traded, fired, or will resign at the end of the current season.

Rumors of management discontent with Harbaugh have been rampant for months, and now sources are providing media types like ESPN’s Adam Scheffer and the NFL Network’s Ian Rappaport with a very specific offer made to Harbaugh by the University of Michigan.

Click here to follow Kent on Twitter

Every time the Michigan job opens – roughly every three years, Harbaugh’s name is bandied about as a candidate. Harbaugh passes, and Michigan throws money are a guy who doesn’t provide the longterm solution they seek for what used to be an elite job.

The last program from north of the Mason-Dixon Line to win a national championship was Ohio State in 2002, and last time I checked, Michigan is way north. Recruiting to Ann Arbor is not like talking a kid into pledging Gainesville, Baton Rouge, Tuscaloosa, Starkville, Athens, Knoxville, Austin, Norman, or Los Angeles.

Harbaugh is no idiot. As much as he fondly remembers his time in Ann Arbor playing for Bo Schembechler, he is a pragmatist at heart, and knows that Michigan’s fan base has expectations that will be impossible to reach. That means failure is a certainty, and the termination countdown will begin as soon as he signs the deal.

The New York Jets, Oakland Raiders, and Chicago Bears will be looking for a coach in less than two weeks, and ownership of all three franchises now know Harbaugh’s price.

That was the point of the leak, and Harbaugh’s rumored consideration of Michigan is a negotiating ploy and nothing more.

Harbaugh will stay in the NFL, and Michigan will settle (again) for a coach who take a payday to fail in Ann Arbor.

Chicago Bears QB Jay Cutler benched for being Jay Cutler; entire Bears front office should be sacked

by Kent Sterling

Chicago Bears quarterback Jay Cutler is the poster boy for the rage of a rabid fan base. I would ask that they look a little harder to find the true villains who caused the team’s mediocrity.

Hating Chicago Bears quarterback Jay Cutler is easy. He’s a petulant mope who appears to shrug and pout as often as Tom Brady drops f-bombs, Andrew Luck congratulates defensive players, and Peyton Manning yells “Omaha!”

But it’s not Cutler’s fault that he isn’t living up to his contract. He didn’t offer himself $54 million guaranteed for three years work. The Chicago Bears did that. The supposedly smart guys who sit around conference tables bleating about draft boards, free agents, and how close they are to getting over the hump decided to throw insane money at Cutler.

Only elite quarterbacks should be paid elite money.

Click here to follow Kent on Twitter

When the Bears brain trust sat in a room in late December, 2013, and vetted the idea that Jay Cutler should be paid like an elite quarterback in 2014, 2015, and 2016, someone should have risen from his or her chair and demanded logic be shared among the hysterical and hopeful predictions. Cutler might have done it himself if invited.

Cutler has never been anything more than an average quarterback. He possesses a great arm, but the results of the work that arm has done through nine seasons have been mediocre at best. Expecting greatness from a quarterback in his ninth year who has never shown it in his first eight is an unreasonable leap of faith – the kind of foolish hope that gets people fired – or should.

Live in hope, die in desperation.

No one in that conference room could have guessed that Cutler would lead the NFL after 14 games in both fumbles (12) and interceptions (18), or that the Bears would be 5-9 as a result, but a quarterback with parts of eight seasons as a starter without ever posting a passer rating of 90 or better is not suddenly going to evolve into an Aaron Rodgers, Manning, Brady, or Luck at the age of 31.

Cutler has been benched, but the stats (other than turnovers) have been on the high end of Cutler’s career range. That means that the version of Cutler who is being benched is exactly what the Bears should have guessed they would get for their money.

Cutler’s 2014 passer rating is 89.5 – best he’s ever had. Cutler’s pace for completions – best ever. He has already thrown for more TDs than during any season in his career. Completion percentage? Highest in Cutler’s career.

Better that ever is what Cutler is providing, and his reward for it is a seat to watch Jimmy Clausen take over.

Only once has Cutler ever quarterbacked his team to the playoffs, so the Bears being eliminated from contention for the postseason shouldn’t be a surprise either.

Cutler is being held accountable for being exactly the same quarterback he has always been – exactly the quarterback the Bears should have known they were getting for their money.

Click here for a $1 dental exam from the best dentist in the world – Dr. Mike O’Neil of Today’s Dentistry

The Bears fans who showed up at Soldier Field Monday night booed mercilessly. I hope at least a few of those angry fans directed their vitriol toward the brain trust who did this crazy deal in the first place.

For playing exactly the kind of football Cutler should be expected to play, he is out. For that, Bears chairman George McCaskey should do a little benching of his own. Anyone who didn’t stand on the table during a meeting to plead that the Bears not reward an average starting QB with $54 million for three years should be fired immediately – and with prejudice – because they don’t know that past is prologue.

Great doesn’t follow mediocre, not for the long haul. That’s the first rule of management. The Bears didn’t know or respect that. That’s why the Bears suck, not because Cutler has been Cutler.