Tim Tebow Mic’d

Tebow mic’d for the game against the Bears.

HT: Andy Naselli

Tebow Responds to Plummer’s Criticism

Jake Plummer said the following on Monday on XTRA Sports 910 in Phoenix:

Tebow, regardless of whether I wish he’d just shut up after a game and go hug his teammates, I think he’s a winner and I respect that about him. I think that when he accepts the fact that we know that he loves Jesus Christ, then I think I’ll like him a little better. I don’t hate him because of that, I just would rather not have to hear that every single time he takes a good snap or makes a good handoff.

Like you know, I understand dude where you’re coming from … but he is a baller.

Tim Tebow responded on ESPN’s First Take by saying:

If you’re married, and you have a wife, and you really love your wife, is it good enough to only say to your wife ‘I love her’ the day you get married? Or should you tell her every single day when you wake up and every opportunity?

And that’s how I feel about my relationship with Jesus Christ is that it is the most important thing in my life. So any time I get an opportunity to tell him that I love him or given an opportunity to shout him out on national TV, I’m gonna take that opportunity. And so I look at it as a relationship that I have with him that I want to give him the honor and glory anytime I have the opportunity. And then right after I give him the honor and glory, I always try to give my teammates the honor and glory.

And that’s how it works because Christ comes first in my life, and then my family, and then my teammates. I respect Jake’s opinion, and I really appreciate his compliment of calling me a winner. But I feel like anytime I get the opportunity to give the Lord some praise, he is due for it.

 

The Choices the Vikings Have Made

These paragraphs are revealing:

Even though Daunte Culpepper has not played in the NFL in two years, his mark on the game is still being felt. Culpepper affected the fate of the franchises in Minnesota, Miami, New Orleans and Green Bay as much as almost any player who has worn those teams’ uniforms.

Were it not for the success Culpepper enjoyed in 2004, Minnesota would have been more inclined to use one of its two first-round picks in the 2005 draft on a quarterback. But Culpepper was coming off a 2004 season in which he threw for 4,717 yards and 39 touchdowns. Minnesota thought it was set at quarterback. So it used the seventh overall pick in 2005 on South Carolina wide receiver Troy Williamson. It used the 18th overall pick on Wisconsin defensive end Erasmus James. And then, with the 24th overall pick, the Green Bay Packers drafted Aaron Rodgers.

The very next offseason, after Culpepper struggled at the start of the 2005 season and then tore up his knee on Oct. 30, the Dolphins traded a second-round pick to Minnesota for the then-disgruntled Culpepper rather than signing free-agent quarterback Drew Brees, who wanted to land in Miami. And so, with Culpepper landing in Miami, Brees had no choice but to go to New Orleans.

Rodgers and Brees, the men whose fates are tied to Culpepper’s, have combined to win the past two Super Bowls. Their success is an ongoing story, a reminder of how timing really is everything and why teams are wise to draft the proverbial best player available. Now Rodgers has the Packers unbeaten. Their march to perfection — going strong enough to make Mercury Morris and the 1972 Dolphins uneasy — is under way. And Rodgers is leading the Packers into Monday night’s game against a Minnesota organization that bypassed him twice in the draft.

Brees has the Saints in first place in the NFC South. He is leading the Saints into Sunday’s NFC South showdown against the second-place Atlanta Falcons. And Culpepper, who worked out for the San Francisco 49ers in August, is out of football while Minnesota and Miami still are trying to make up for multiple mistakes. It is a different form of fantasy football, detailing NFL hypotheticals that could have but didn’t happen. But it also is a glimpse of how much one quarterback helped change the way the league is viewed today.

What Criticisms of Tim Tebow Reveal

Here are some insightful comments about the Tebow criticism:

Imagine for a second, the Denver Broncos quarterback is a devout follower of Islam, sincere and principled in his beliefs and thus bowed toward Mecca to celebrate touchdowns. Now imagine if Detroit Lions players Stephen Tulloch and Tony Scheffler mockingly bowed toward Mecca, too, after tackling him for a loss or scoring a touchdown, just like what happened Sunday.

I know what would happen. All hell would break loose.

You cannot mock Muslim faith, not in this country, not anywhere really.

It is primarily a respect issue, because religion is sacred and should be off limits. Yet when Tulloch and Scheffler dropped to a knee to mock how Tebow prays — an action known as “Tebowing” that has gone viral among the public, too — we yawned and told Christians to lighten up. We blamed Tebow for making a show of honoring God rather than himself in moments of joy. We excused them because Tulloch said he was mocking “Tebowing,” not God.

What this whole repeating cycle of Tebow — rip his game, mock his faith, rise to his defense, repeat — has revealed about religious discourse in America is ugly. We have become so enamored of politically correct dogma that we protect every minority from even the slightest blush of insensitivity while letting the very institutions that the majority holds dear to be ridiculed. And this defense that Tebow invites such scrutiny with his willingness to publicly live as he privately believes calls into question what exactly it is we value…

Resolved to Endeavor to Imitate Jim Thome

One of Jonathan Edwards resolutions was to…Whenever I hear anything spoken in conversation of any person, if I think it would be praiseworthy in me, Resolved to endeavor to imitate it.

We should all emulate Jim Thome when everyone around him are saying the following:

“He is the world’s nicest man,” said Twins closer Joe Nathan. “He’s one of those guys that the hype is so great before you meet him, then he lives up to the hype, and more. When you see him from across the field, you think, ‘He can’t be that nice,’ but he is. He is so genuine. There are other players that will be forgotten when they leave, but he will not be. We will be talking about him for years to come. To me, he’s like [Hall of Famer] Harmon Killebrew. They are one in the same. When you meet both of those guys for the first time, you think, ‘Wow, this is someone that I will be wanting to talk to on a daily basis.’”

“Jim Thome is the best,” said Twins reliever Matt Capps. “He is just a regular guy. I’ve been to dinner with him, and people come to our table, and he takes time to say hi to a kid. I’ve seen guys with six months in the big leagues snub a kid in a restaurant. Not Jim, and he is a first-ballot Hall of Famer. He’ll talk to a guy who knew him from Cleveland in 1993. He is a role model for all of us, he is like every one of us would like to be. I’d like to get 20 years in the big leagues like him, but what am I going to be like in 12 or 15 years? Meeting him, you would never know that he was on the cusp of hitting 600 home runs.”

“He’s like Babe Ruth around here,” said Twins manager Ron Gardenhire, smiling. “The fans here get all mad at me for not playing him every day. The other day [as Thome was within two home runs of 600], the White Sox were throwing that [Chris] Sale kid, the left-hander throwing 97 [mph], and the fans wanted me to pinch-hit Thome for [Danny] Valencia [who bats right-handed]. They just love him here. He’s great. He has been a pleasure.”

“He is the nicest, gentlest, kindest guy you will ever meet … to everything except the baseball, he still hits that really hard,” said Twins outfielder Michael Cuddyer. “He has great fire to him. It’s not like, when he strikes out, he says, ‘Oh, that was such a good pitch.’ It’s nothing like that. That’s the perception some people have of him, but he hates to lose. When he walks in a room, everyone watches everything he does. It’s the way he treats people, it’s the way he respects the game. When I heard he was re-signing with us, I was so happy for a lot of reasons, but one reason was I wanted to be there for when he hit No. 600. Every night, I would pray that I was on base when he hit his 600th home run.”

Ex-teammates still talk about Thome lovingly in Cleveland (he does get booed a bit by Indians fans, but that’s for leaving in the first place) and in Philadelphia and Chicago. He is relentlessly positive. Perkins remembers his first or second day back with the Twins this year after a long stretch in the minors. He was walking by Thome, who was taking his slow, methodical phantom batting practice. “And suddenly, he just stops,” Perkins says, “and he smiles and gives me a fist. I mean, it’s not like I’m Joe Mauer or Justin Morneau. He barely knows who I am. But that’s the kind of guy he is. He’s the best teammate I’ve ever had… . I think everybody thinks that.”

Read both Tim Kurkjian and Joe POSNANSKI’s article on him.

Thoughts About McNabb

It is hard to admit one is a Vikings fan these days. But I cannot cut my loyalties loose, despite the fact that they spun me around last year and kicked me below the belt.

Now they have gone (or so it seems) and picked up another veteran quarterback, Donavan McNabb.

What should we make of this?

First, they had no other choice. They need more options in the quarterback position.. Even if McNabb does not start, we need someone there if Ponder is not ready.

Second, I am not convinced the McNabb is done. He did not have the weapons around him in Washington that Minnesota provides. He could come in and have a dud year, but then again he could have another breakout year. I am willing to take the chance. Like I said we don’t have many other options.

So in conclusion, I welcome McNabb, whether it be as a mentor to Ponder or as our starter.

Bill Simmons in NYT

I began reading Bill Simmons simultaneously with when the Boston Celtics got the big three. In fact both passions fueled the other. I would log onto ESPN whenever they played a playoff game and gobble up the hilarity that flowed from Simmons pen. It was especially good when they played the Lakers. Owen Strachan pointed out that there is a long article on him in the NYT. Mahler is right to when saying the following that makes Bill Simmons distinct and interesting:

For Simmons, this distinction — between fan and columnist — doesn’t really exist. Unlike many sportswriters, for whom detachment is a point of professional pride, Simmons makes no pretense of neutrality. This is at least one explanation for his extraordinary popularity. According to ComScore, Simmons’s “Sports Guy” Web column, which he publishes every 10 days or so, attracted 740,000 unique visitors in April, making him probably the most widely read sportswriter in America today.

Owen’s reflection on Simmons is worth pondering:

Perhaps we evangelicals can learn something by the way Simmons connects with his audience.  He’s a real guy, he wears his passions on his sleeve, and he interacts with his readers like they actually matter.  He doesn’t write or lead (in his way) from an athletic Mount Olympus; he seems like a friend you might have as a sports fan, albeit the highly intelligent, uncouth, emotional fan who will burst a blood vessel arguing whether Mark Jackson or Travis Best was a better pass-first point guard.

There’s something about Simmons’s approach for us to consider, I think.  Those who are in ministry, who are leaders in some way, are not unapproachable demi-gods.  We’re very normal people.  We should work hard to connect with the people we lead and seek to reach for the glory of Christ.  We can work entrepreneurially for the advancement of the kingdom–a fun subject for another day–but we should always do so with people, real people, in mind, not our own glory.

All About Lebron

For sports fans, nothing gets a conversation going like the question, “What do you think about Lebron James?”

His “decision” created a vast swath of haters, while there are still many who have switched from Cleveland to Miami. There are so many opinions swirling around about Lebron James, it is hard to keep track of them (a valid question might be if it is worth it).

Well here are a couple different interesting different opinions about him.

• First, Rick Reilly argues that Lebron is playing as big as ever. (Mind you this came before game 4).  He says, “If anything, the way James is playing has only made him double in greatness. James’ legend isn’t shrinking, it’s swelling up like a Macy’s float.I’m the last guy that wants to write a glowing column about LeBron James. I hate how he conspired to get to Miami, hate how he took a short cut to a ring. But you’d have to be visually impaired not to see that James is playing gorgeous, selfless, complete basketball.
• Bill Simmons called game 4 another Lebrondown. He says:  “Fact: It’s better for the NBA that LeBron James melted down in Dallas, disappeared and extended his “Wait a second, what the hell just happened???” streak to two straight years. Now it’s threatening to become a late-spring tradition along the lines of Father’s Day, the U.S. Open,and MTV cutting a “Real World/Road Rules Challenge” trailer that ends with someone about to be punched in the face. Why isn’t LeBron shooting? Why isn’t he driving to the basket? Why does his face look like the face of a little kid who just got called in front of the entire class? Why is his performance making me want to google the Wiggles’ “Hot Potato” video? Does he realize this game is being televised? You can’t call it a meltdown or a breakdown; that would belittle what happened. Call it a LeBrondown.”
• Over at Mockingbird they are arguing that Lebron still has to define if he is Batman or Robin, or if there are two leaders on this team. Tonight will be a big deciding factor.

Overall, I think Bill Simmons is right on these couple of points:

Fact: The Decision was the best thing that happened to the NBA in 15 years.

Fact: The Decision’s aftermath created the league’s most polarizing juggernaut in two decades. The Heat were booed in sold-out arenas across the country even as they were selling more jerseys than any other team. For the first five weeks of the regular season, the constant negativity affected the players; you could see it on their faces. In the words of the great Cliff Poncier, all that negativity eventually made them stronger. They reclaimed their status as title favorites, rolled through Boston and Chicago, made the Finals, and morphed into something of a preening, self-satisfied, overconfident bully — basketball’s version of Mike Tyson in the 1980s, so athletically overpowering that it actually seemed to psyche out opponents.During that whole time, they never stopped being compelling. Not once.

Fact: If Miami blows this Finals after choking away Games 2 and 4, after everything that happened since The Decision and The Gratuitous Party One Night After The Decision, the Internet might explode. I’m not kidding. You’re going to log on the next morning and there will just be a picture of a mushroom cloud.

On Phil Jackson

The Sports Guy writes about his interview Phil Jackson earlier in the season. It is a great article, especially the parts about Kobe and Jordan. Simmons argues that Jackson might be the best coach in history because of his ability to manage people.

He never gets enough credit for successfully handling two of the three most difficult NBA superstars ever: Jordan and Kobe (with Wilt being the third). Jordan’s ongoing ruthlessness threatened the basic concept of a “team” — instead of being supportive, he was withering. He had to win all the time, every time. If he sensed someone might be a weak link, Jordan shattered their confidence rather than building it up. During any times of real struggle on a basketball court, he trusted himself over everyone else and played accordingly. Jackson tempered his most unlikable qualities while accentuating the good ones, steering him toward a team framework without compromising the ferocity that defined him.

His smartest small-picture move was pitting Pippen and Jordan on opposite sides in every scrimmage, which kept both players sharp and ensured their practices were properly competitive; otherwise, Jordan would have gone for a shutout every game. His smartest big-picture move was his handling of Jordan’s baseball sabbatical, when he reminded Michael that he was an artist more than a basketball player, and that, by walking away, he would be depriving millions of a chance to experience that art. He never tried to change Michael’s mind, just reminded him what was at stake. For Jordan, that cemented their relationship and opened the door for Michael’s eventual return; he knew Jackson cared about him as something more than a meal ticket. When people dismiss Jackson’s credentials with “Anyone could have coached Michael Jordan,” they are wrong.

Kobe presented a different set of issues, as we’ve rehashed ad nauseam over the past ten years. Jackson won five rings with him, but not before walking away in 2004 (and ripping Kobe to shreds in an astonishingly critical book), then returning a year later and eventually working out a manageable compromise. Jackson dealt with Kobe the same way parents deal with raising young kids: You know you’ll have good days and bad days, so you can’t dwell on the bad ones. Only once did Kobe nearly shoot the Lakers out of a title — Game 7 of the 2010 Finals, when Boston’s strategy hinged on doubling Kobe, forcing “hero” shots and hoping his ego would compel him to keep shooting (which it did) — but in another classic Jackson-era moment, Kobe’s teammates (Derek Fisher, especially) pulled him back into the fold. Bryant regrouped in the fourth quarter, made better decisions and helped the Lakers win the title.

And here is a great reflection on Jordan:

We talked about Michael’s steadfast refusal to blow random, meaningless road games in Sacramento, Vancouver, Cleveland or wherever, how those were the nights that made him truly special, when his entire team was dragging, when the NBA schedule demanded a Chicago loss, yet Michael just couldn’t allow it.

These Celtics

It is not over yet, but it is close. Here is a good roundup on these Celtics, with questions…(my answers in brackets)

1. With one title in two Finals trips in this era, Celtics fans should feel …

A. Happy
B. Satisfied (Win a championship vs Lakers…amazing…then loose to the Lakers…bumps me down to satisfied)
C. Unsatisfied
D. Unhappy
E. [Your description here]

2. The Kendrick Perkins trade has been much-maligned. The criticism is …

A. Right on point (however, Perkins was right back on the injury list when he went to OKC)
B. Missing the point
C. Overstated
D. Understated
E. [Your description here]

3. When Boston’s season ends, it will be time for Danny Ainge to …

A. Bring everyone back
B. Tweak the roster
C. Make a major move
D. Start over
E. [Your prescription here] (It is either C or D. They are only getting older and the other teams are getting better, faster, and younger. Miami will only be better next year)

4. Rajon Rondo, age 25, is the only Celtics star under 33. He is also …

A. The foundation for a new era of Celtics title contention
B. A franchise player but not enough (He can run the show, but he can’t run the show…in terms of scoring)
C. A keeper, but only a good piece, not a franchise player
D. The guy who can bring Boston back the most in a trade
E. [Your description here]

5. What is your favorite memory from this era of Celtics basketball?

Kevin Garnett literally loosing his mind, throwing back his head, and yelling “Anything is possible!” I thought the vein in his neck was going to burst resulting in him immediately dying on the court. The next day headline reads: “Garnett dies from elevated-emotion”

Celtic’s fans where do you stand?

Before Manny became Manny

Good article HERE on the Manny Ramirez we all want to remember. Reminds me of what sin will do to a person unchecked. Ruin them.

Hero. Cheat. Prodigy. Ingrate. Free spirit. Knucklehead. Hall of Famer. Pariah. Enigma. Manny Ramirez, one of the great right-handed hitters of his generation, who retired from baseball this month after once again testing positive for performance-enhancing drugs, was many things to many people — fans and family and teammates from Santo Domingo to Washington Heights to Cleveland to Boston. Sara Rimer, then a reporter for The New York Times, met Ramirez in 1991 at George Washington High School in Manhattan. Over two decades, she enjoyed a memorable and mystifying acquaintanceship with Ramirez.

When I heard that Manny Ramirez had retired, the first person I called was his high school coach, Steve Mandl. I reached him at George Washington High School in Upper Manhattan, where he has coached varsity baseball for 27 years.

He was sad and stunned. I pictured him at the dented metal desk in his cramped office, where a 20-something Manny Ramirez in his Cleveland Indians uniform looms from the autographed poster that hangs on the wall.

“Steve,” I said, “that was real, wasn’t it — the Manny in high school, that swing, his work ethic, all that pure talent?”

“Oh, yeah,” Mandl said, “that was real.”

Gus Johnson

Every year during March Madness I have to post something on Gus Johnson. I can’t believe I missed the NY Times article on him. It says:

Johnson took his personality from his father, his athleticism from his mother and his delivery from her father, a preacher. In hindsight, it was a broadcasting blend.

This is reflected in his style, which Johnson described as: “Emotional. Passionate. Noncritical. Fair. A little crazy. A lot crazy. A little wild.” For years, he tried to sound witty, like ESPN anchors, or let the pictures speak for themselves. Yet his best success came when he acted like himself.

Also Jim Rome did an interview with him. Rome asked Johnson whether he had anything special for Fredette “locked and loaded yet.” The announcer said he’s been thinking about it, but prefers his words to come organically. Talking about the process of coming up with what he says in games, he said:

I don’t like to write a whole bunch of stuff down. … I just want it to come out. I think the most important part is to match the rhythm and the sound of the game.

He also said this about the game:

I don’t want to be the story, to be honest. I want to be a part of the story. I want to be a part of this piece—this beautiful piece, which is a combination of the coaches and the players, and the sound of the game and the rhythm of the game, and then my voice being a part of that musical piece that lays on top, and it’s able to accentuate crescendo moments…

 

Jacob Tucker Wins Dunk Contest

Here are highlights of dunk contest. Remember he is 5’10”.

Walk-Up Songs: Top 20 Tunes That Get Baseball Players Pumped for Play

See them all HERE.

Butler

Great article on Butler (actually on Matt Howard) by Rick Reilly. Here is how he begins:

Butler is not to be trusted in this Final Four. It pretends to be a guppy but has a piranha’s appetite. Underdog? Please. Butler is the favorite now, and a lot of us know it. Whatever you do, don’t pet it.

Its cover is blown after last year’s Final Four. We all know how it works. Butler wants you to think it’s something it’s not. Take its heart, senior forward Matt Howard, who looks more like a geeky band-camp RA than a possible NBA first rounder. If Ichabod Crane played hoops, he’d look like this. He’s 93 percent elbow and the rest Adam’s apple. He’s got so many juts, you could hang tinsel off him.

He’s the Academic All-American of the Year in Division I. He’s so nerdy, you look at him and think, “What’s the worst he’s going to do to us? Reprogram our iPhones to Chinese?”

Look at those socks. They lost their elastic years ago. And those sad shoes! If those shoes were your couch, it’d be in the alley now.

“He has six pairs of brand-new shoes in his locker,” teammate Shelvin Mack says. “But he won’t wear them! He just keeps wearing those ratty old ones.”

And what’s that on his head? Arugula?

Read the rest HERE.

Wilbon on the NCAA Tournament

Michael Wilbon has a convincing article about how the NCAA tournament used to be better. He argues it is still exciting, the players are simply not as good. They have all migrated to the NBA.

Don’t get me wrong, the tournament might be as compelling as ever if we’re judging it by the amount of drama produced. The conditions certainly exist to make it so. Take the top eight teams and the bottom four teams out of the discussion for a second, and that leaves 56 teams that are for the most part indistinguishable.

While that could very well make for overtimes and buzzer-beaters, a slew of upsets and charming Cinderella stories, it doesn’t mean that the quality of play is what it used to be. There’s not a team in the tournament as good as Memphis was three years ago. Fortunately for the carnival barkers, 80 percent of the folks in the office pool don’t know the difference between exciting and good.

Jay Bilas, the ESPN basketball analyst and Final Four veteran from his playing days at Duke, spoke to this so eloquently in a conversation we had in Bristol on Sunday, then more extensively with Tony Kornheiser and me on “PTI” Monday afternoon. Bilas pointed out that two of the primary stars of this NBA season, presumptive MVP Derrick Rose and double-double machine Kevin Love, would be seniors at Memphis and UCLA, respectively, in another time and place. And Bilas says there are about 60 NBA players who left college with eligibility.

 

Jacob Tucker Can Dunk

At 5’11” Jacob Tucker’s Dunk Video has gone viral. The guard from Division III Illinois College in Jacksonville, Ill., wanted to make a case for an invitation to the NCAA dunk contest at the Final Four in Houston.  ESPN reports. Watch video below.

The Viking’s Quarterback Problem

Kevin Seifret writes about the desperate need the Vikings are in of the most important position in maybe all of sports, a Quarterback.  The list of our past Quarterback’s is depressing. It is time to make a move and plan for the future.

The Minnesota Vikings arrived at this week’s scouting combine carrying the most intense personnel burden a team can face: They have no starting quarterback and no clear path for finding an obvious answer in the draft.

“We’re going to look at all avenues at the quarterback [position],” vice president of player personnel Rick Spielman said at the NFL scouting combine, which he and his scouts are scouring for quarterback options. “… But you’re hoping that by the time all the dust settles and we’re getting ready to go into the season that we have that position pretty much resolved.”

We’ve seen this act before, of course. Consider the first chart: The Vikings have been patching together this position for an extended period of their history, spanning multiple ownership regimes, personnel executives and coaching staffs.

In the 21 years since Tommy Kramer’s final season, the Vikings have used 10 different primary starters. Most recently, they set themselves back with an indefensible plan to develop Tarvaris Jackson as their long-term answer. Jackson is a pending free agent and, with the departure of coach/benefactor Brad Childress, seems unlikely to return.

Can the Vikings make a similar grab at No. 12 overall this year? Will they move up to ensure they can draft Auburn’s Cam Newton or Missouri’s Blaine Gabbert, both of whom will likely be off the board at No. 12? Would Washington’s Jake Locker make sense at that spot? Or would the Vikings identify a second-level prospect, perhaps Florida State’s Christian Ponder, and maneuver to draft him in the second or third round?

Who should the Viking’s pick up?

Rick Reilly on Aaron Rodgers’ Unforgettable Forgiveness

Aaron Rodgers is the MVP of this teeth-grinding, palm-sweating Super Bowl, and it has nothing do with how he throws or how he runs. It has to do with how he lives.

In 50 years, when they write Rodgers’ life story, they won’t praise so much his freakish arm.

They won’t write about his Houdini feet.

They won’t go on about his grace under pressure, his rifle-scope accuracy or his courage while the land around him burned.

No, they’ll write about his unlimited capacity to forgive.

Through all the hell Brett Favre put him through, through all the yo-yoing Favre did with Rodgers’ career all those years, Rodgers never lost his patience. He never lashed out. Instead, he forgave and got to work.

Fast-forward to the biggest moment of his life — Super Bowl XLV — and teammates started turning on him again.

They started dropping the ball. Literally.

Read the rest HERE.

The Best Super Bowl XLV Ads

Here is my list:

P.S. Chrysler making a cool commercial makes me want to buy one of their cars 0% more.