Sport Idols: Peyton Manning

"Playoffs!?!"

"We've thrown 4 interceptions for touchdowns this year that might be an NFL record."

A lot of people know the famous tirade by Jim Mora, but many don't seem to mention the quarterback that he is talking about. That quarterback is Peyton Manning.

Yes. The Peyton Manning. One of the best of all time.

So, let's talk about "PLAYOFFS?!" Peyton Manning has only missed one postseason since that season and that was because he missed the entire year to neck surgery.

"I just hope we can win a game."

Win games? Peyton Manning has. 10 straight 10 win seasons including 8(7 straight)seasons of 12+ wins. In fact Peyton has only been under 10 wins twice, his rookie year and the year of "playoffs!?" which was his 4th year.

That's consistent. Consistency leads to greatness. Peyton averages 95.7 quarterback rating for his career and he's had a 95 or higher in 8 of the last 9 seasons!

Peyton Manning gets called the greatest REGULAR season quarterback of all time, as if its a bad thing. Yes, people might wonder why Peyton only has one superbowl victory through all this success. I don't think it has anything to do with him not being good "under pressure." What I love about Peyton is how much work and preparation he puts into every game he plays. Regular or post season, doesn't matter. He wants to win and he puts all his energy into that. He puts so much "pressure" on himself every game that he doesn't feel the difference from regular or post season, its still a game that he wants to win badly.

Sometimes things just happen. The NFL and the playoff system is a very cruel world. It gives you excitement and entertainment, but I feel it doesn't always go to the best team. The ball can bounce in funny ways and that totally changes the game. i.e. how many times does David Tyree make that catch on his helmet. It was a great play and one for the history books, but if that doesn't happen New England wins the superbowl and they finish their perfect 19-0 season. What are the odds the Saints recover the onside kick to start the second half and totally change the momentum of the game? Gutsy, but it paid of for them and not for the Colts. Stuff happens and they just didn't seem to fall Peyton's way a lot of times in the playoffs.

Another example is Tom Brady. He won his Superbowl rings when he was young. However, he has played much better the last 8 years, and hasn't won one, than he did during the years he actually won 3 out of 4 superbowls. Maybe he doesn't have the defense he once had or maybe its just the playoffs and things like David Tyree's catch get in the way.

But that's why we watch. The unpredictable and the incomprehensible, the upsets happen. That's what makes it fun and that's why we watch. But it doesn't take away from Peyton's greatness.  

All I know is that if all things are equal: same defense, same special teams, same coach, same offense and I had to choose one quarterback in history to win a game(regular season, postseason, or Superbowl) I am choosing Peyton Manning in a heartbeat.

Roman Numerals

So today I started thinking about Superbowl 50. Superbowl L. I just thought that would look really weird with just one letter there after the superbowl. So that led me to think about other cool superbowl roman numerals. Does anyone know what 90 would be? Superbowl Cross Country! That's right, XC! Looks like with all the safety changes the league will make in the next 43 years, we will have a bunch of cross country runners out there playing for the superbowl. Maybe Bernard Pollard is right and the NFL won't exist in 30 years. Or maybe it will be taken over as a non-contact sport of cross country runners?

Another note, DCLXVI=666. Coincidence? I think not. Maybe thats where the evil number came from. Must do research.

Sport Idols: THE Ronaldo

I'm sitting on the floor with a sheet wrapped around my shoulders. It's June 30th 2002 and I'm at my grandma's assisted living home in St. Petersburg, FL. I'm awake at 5 am to watch the greatest game in the world on the biggest stage. The World Cup Final in Yokohoma, Japan. The Final matches up the two biggest powers in World Football. Brazil vs. Germany. Going into the Final, the two countries combined for 7 World Cup victories and 12 final appearances in the previous 16 World Cups. However, not only had they never met in a final, they had never played each other in any World Cup game. Until the Final of 2002.

It was the classic matchup. Strength against speed. Organized vs free flowing. Defensive vs offensive. Europe vs South America. And finally Oliver Kahn(leading goalkeeper) vs Ronaldo(leading goal scorer). The stage was set to decide who had ultimate supremacy in the world of football.

I sat there on the floor pretending to have a nation's flag wrapped around me, that was actually just a white sheet. Even though I like both countries, there was no doubt in my mind whose nation's flag I was pretending to have. It was Brazil's. And one of the biggest reasons why was because of Ronaldo. The first professional sports jersey I ever had was Ronaldo's Brazilian #9.

The game in my mind lived up to the hype(even the refereeing was superb).

"He's tied Pele!"

"Redemption for Ronaldo"

Those words from Jack Edwards, as Ronaldo scored his second goal of the game to lead Brazil to a 2-0 victory, will forever be in my head.

It truly was redemption for Ronaldo. Back in the 1998 Final, Brazil lost to France 3-0. The night before that Final Ronaldo had suffered a seizure. He played well below his abilities and looked extremely fatigued during the match. In international football opportunities and chances don't come around much. He had to live with that for 4 years. During those 4 years he had two knee surgeries and people didn't even know if he would be back. Let alone back to his ability level.

Ronaldo went on to score 8 goals in the 7 games he played in the 2002 World Cup. He did tie Pele with that second goal in the final to match his 12 total World Cup goals with Pele's. He went on to score 3 more in the 2006 World Cup to pass Gerd Muller for the all-time leader in World Cup goals at 15.

Ronaldo suffered from injuries throughout his career and weight problems from hypothyroidism towards the end, but somehow he always found a way to be at his best when he put his Brazil jersey on for the World Cup. In my mind, he will always be one of the best finishers in World Cup history.

THE One and Only Ronaldo!

Check out all 15 World Cup goals here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEKyl2yakOE

Sport Idols: Mr. Clutch

Basketball is a game that is known for its clutch shot making. Sure there are walk-off homers, and last second FGs, or the final TD throws and catches to win games, maybe even the rare goal in stoppage time, but those situations are a lot rarer and you have to be lucky enough to even have a chance to come through in the clutch. To which Adam Vinatieri is very lucky to be in all the situations he was in, but he was still clutch enough to come through. However, looking at basketball we see last second shots that decide the game every night, regular season or postseason. They are a lot more common. Kids across America are always doing the countdown. 3, they pick up their dribble. 2, give a pump fake. 1, jump up and release. Buzzer. The jubilation comes as they pretend they won the championship. Every kid dreaming of playing in the NBA has dreamt of making that shot.

Every generation has one of those players that you trust more than ever with the game on the line. The ice in his veins. Not going to blink or second guess him. To me, that player is Reggie Miller.

Reggie Miller:
Hard to believe that any NBA player could be overshadowed in athletic achievement by their sister growing up, but Reggie Miller was. Scoring 39 points in a high school game, he came home to find out his sister(Cheryl Miller) scored 105 that same night.

Reggie Miller is a real life Forrest Gump story. He had braces on his legs until he was 4 and doctors said he would never be very athletic. Once the braces came off and his legs got stronger he started playing his older sister all the time. She was always bigger and taller than him growing up and he couldn't drive to the hole without being rejected. So Reggie developed a high arcing shot to get it over her tall frame. This would be a blessing as he practice this shot over and over which helped him become one of the greatest three point shooters of all-time.

Reggie Miller played all of his 18 seasons in the NBA with the Indiana Pacers, something that I greatly admire. Unfortunately, he was never able to win a NBA championship, but that didn't stop him from putting on some great shows and performances. He had a lot of classic matchups with the New York Knicks in the 1990's. No greater moment though when he scored 8 points in 8.9 seconds, making two 3's in about three seconds. After stealing the inbounds pass(from his first 3) down three, he turned and ran to the three point line and turned back to throw it up and tie the game. That was an incredible moment that is hard to duplicate, but Reggie made big three after big three in his career. If you're down one and need to drive to the hoop, Reggie is not your guy. But if you're down two and want the win or down three and need to tie, Reggie is your man!

If I need a three at the end of the game, there is no one I want more than Reggie Miller!

It's Miller Time!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSWE_Wbu80o

Sport Idols: Roger Federer

I have come to the point in my life where I am seeing a lot of my childhood sports idols retire or start to decline in their ability (at least ever so slightly). Over the next several days I am going to honor those athletes that I have admired growing up. Some I have admired for the way they play their sport and their passion, others I have admired for how they handle themselves through victory and defeats, while other may just be funny characters on and off their playing surface. These idols come from many various sports that I grew up watching.

Roger Federer:
I am going to start off, in no particular order, with Roger Federer because he is fresh in the mind after staying up late last night to watch his match with Andy Murray. Out of all the idols I will honor, he is probably the farthest one from retirement. He we probably still be playing for the next 3, maybe even 5, years. Picking Roger as an idol is interesting because I actually spent quite a few matches rooting against him when he would play Andy Roddick(hint, hint). I have been a huge Roger fan when he isn't playing Andy though.

One of the biggest rivalry's for me to watch in the last decade(outside the Civil War) would be the Federer vs Nadal matches. Unfortunately we were only able to see a few great matches between the two because of Nadal's dominance on clay and Federer dominance on hard court. We were able to see a couple classics at Wimbledon and one classic down under in Australian when Nadal was at his peak and finally stayed healthy on hard courts. I do wish to see at least one more Federer vs Nadal classic matchup(preferably not on clay), but we have two 25 year olds standing in the way of that right now, even when Nadal gets healthy.

As I watched Federer play last night, I could tell, for the first time, he was slower to get to balls he once got easily and his serving power was not what it once was. Federer has always made everything look so easy and it was that look of ease that you couldn't really see his heart and competitiveness, but we saw that last night. If it were a basketball game, Murray led from start to finish, but Federer didn't care what the score was or how fast the balls were coming back. He just grinded like crazy and gave himself a shot to win the match. Unfortunately, the win didn't come. Andy Murray has truly now arrived, more than ever, with his first Major win against Federer. Just another person Federer will have to beat out if he wants to get to the top again. I'm hoping for one or two more before he calls it quits. (3 more would give him 20, that sounds good?!)

The thing I love about Federer is his love for the sport. It's the reason he is still playing and will continue to play. Some players want to go out on top, leave before they decline. He doesn't care he just wants to play and keep playing his heart off for just another major and another. Others, especially in tennis, were forced to play at a young age by their parents and its no longer fun. Federer was good enough to play a lot of sports(soccer was the other main one), but he chose to play tennis because he loved it and continues to show that love for it.

I am not going to seat here and argue that Federer is the greatest athlete out there. The term "athlete" is so broad and can mean so many things. But I will argue that he is the most accomplished athlete of this generation and maybe all-time! 17 major titles. He made it to 17 of 18 finals in a 4.5 year span! That's crazy! That's consistent! 35 consecutive quarterfinals at majors and counting! The list goes on and on. I'm sure a lot of people would love to take their rival out of the equation, but think if Nadal weren't around- Look out! He would have 23 major titles and 2 calendar grand slams(the stat that eludes him). Unfortunately, Nadal was there to stop him on clay for many years, but the fans were also fortunate enough to see someone pushing Federer to be even better and we were blessed with that rivalry. Now we get to see all of the Big 4 battle it out for the next few years and I think we owe it to Federer who challenged all of them when they were coming up through the ranks to be even better.

Here's to The Great Roger Federer!

AP vs Peyton

There is a lot of debate over who is going to win Comeback Player of the Year and the MVP awards. A lot of people have both awards down to Adrian Peterson and Peyton Manning. I am going to tell you that it is a simple decision for both awards.

To start I am going to say that I am bias towards both players. I am a long time Peyton Manning fan. I think he should win MVP every year because of is intense preparation and consistency year after year. I am also one of the crazy people that said he should win last year because look what the Colts did without him. However, I am also a long time Vikings fan and I liked AP back in his college days at Oklahoma.

Comeback Player of the Year:
I think this should go to Peyton Manning just for the sheer reason that he missed all of the 2011 season with the neck injury. We could talk about which injury is harder to comeback from. Certainly the ACL for a running back is huge and hard to comeback from, but Adrian still played 12 games in 2011 and almost had 1000 yards rushing before his injury. Peyton had 0 TD's and 0 passing yards in 2011. Peyton has the biggest comeback in terms of production from 2011 to 2012 that's what I'm looking for. Adrian did comeback faster than anyone could have thought and that is very impressive. Big ups! However, I'm not giving the award for faster healer, but biggest production lost from injury and then gained back after injury. So it goes to Peyton.

MVP:
I would love to give this to Peyton, but it has to go to Adrian "All Day" Peterson. No player meant more to his team than AP. Both players obviously have great cases to win this award or we wouldn't be talking about them. Peyton did a great job with a good team and being the number one seed in the AFC is huge. However, if the Vikings don't have Adrian, they are nothing. Teams came into each game knowing that they have to put 8 or 9 guys in the box to stop AP and the Viking's offense, and they still couldn't stop him. That is MVP status right there. Also coming 8 yards shy of the record for rushing yards in a season when he saw limited touches and production in the first 4-6 games because they didn't want to push the ACL too much too early. That is crazy! He could have obliterated the record if the season started a month later and he got his touches earlier. I love Peyton and the Broncos would have struggled without you for sure, but not as much as the Vikings without AP. Adrian for MVP.

Rules of Tennis

Yesterday we saw a perfect case of why the injury rules in tennis need to be changed. Sloane Stephens was ready to serve having saved 5 match points on Azarenka's serve to get back on serve in the 2nd set. Only problem is Azarenka took not one, but two medical timeouts that totalled 10 minutes. I was watching Azarenka's service game and I saw no signs of any injury from her. She choked your opportunities away and was possibly feeling fatigue, but choking and fatigue are not injuries.

Now, who knows what would have happened if Sloane's momentum was not slowed down by these "injuries." Certainly Sloane only held serve twice in the whole match, so one could argue the point that she would have lost anyways. We will never know the real answer though because Azarenka was able to take an injury timeout and go inside and collect herself. She told us in the on-court interview right after the match herself that she needed to take a breath. She didn't mention her rib or her knee that the match officials said they were "treating."

I am not quite sure how tennis can fix faking injuries for a timeout entirely. We see it in all the sports these days from slowing down the offense in football or wasting time in a soccer match. Two things I would like to see tennis do is that you cannot call the trainer before your opponent's serve(which we heard some experts say last night on ESPN) and you cannot use two medical timeouts consecutively(I didn't know you could until last night!).

Again, who knows if Sloane would have kept up her momentum anyways, but you cannot tell me that Azarenka's "injury" timeout didn't change the circumstances of the match.

Second Chances

Ray Lewis. Love him or hate him. Guilty or not guilty. Ray Lewis has taken his second chance at life and football and thrived.

I have long hated the Baltimore Ravens and it started because of Ray Lewis. I didn’t follow the story that closely of what happened that night in Atlanta(I was only 12 years old), but I am someone who is influenced by my father. He was pretty certain from the details he was hearing that, Ray Lewis was a murderer or at least a part of it and didn’t stop it. So I have never rooted for Ray Lewis or the Ravens especially in Superbowl XXXV. I have since become a Steelers fan which fits in with hating the Ravens and Ray Lewis.

As we all look back on Ray Lewis’s career, since Superbowl XLVII will be his last game, we can see that he will go down as one of the top middle linebackers the game has ever seen and there is not a whole lot that can deny his talents of the game. Everyone that has played with Ray Lewis or been around him has talked about his intense and inspiring leadership that makes him such a special player. We have all seen him display his heart on his sleeve for the last decade plus of his career. It seems every year he is more and more inspiring, from his dance to his pre-game speeches, he always has his team ready to go.

I can’t tell you what happened that night in Atlanta, but Ray Lewis will tell you that he surrounded himself with the wrong people. He learned big lessons during that time of his life that putting yourself around like minded people that want what’s best for you and not around those that are trying to use you for fame or money. Something hopefully Michael Vick has learned as well.

We can sit here and debate if he is guilty and whether or not he served his punishment to society. All I can say is that whatever crimes he may have committed, he has admitted them to The Lord. Ray Lewis has opened his heart to Him and He has forgiven Ray for his past wrongdoings because He knew that Ray will change. God has a plan for all of us, and when Ray found God(probably sometime in the troubling times following the incident in Atlanta), He knew what Ray could do as a man and role model to society (forget about football). The ultimate second chance is through Him and Ray took it.  God has given Ray a huge second chance and he has taken it and I think this last playoff run has all been through Him to allow Ray to show the world what a great God we truly have. I must say that Ray is living up to his part and we should all listen.

I have much respect for Ray Lewis now, both as a man and as a football player, something I couldn’t say 10 maybe even 5 years ago. That being said I am still a Steelers fan and a west coast man, so go 49ers! But I know that Ray will do all he can to lead his team to victory. Win or lose, I know Ray will be speaking His name!