Halftime — Pats vs Colts

The game has been a high-scoring affair so far which IMO plays into the hands of the Colts. There are two key problems facing the Pats.

  1. The defense has shown a complete inability to stop the Colts offense. Peyton Manning is a quality quarterback, and the Pats need to do something to disrupt his game. They have not gotten enough pressure on him and the secondary has been unable to come up with big plays. The defense needs to figure something out over halftime or the Pats will have a tough time winning the game.
  2. Turnover problems. Brady through two interceptions in the first half. This is a high scoring game and the Pats have to take advantage of every position. Brady flubbed two possessions with the interceptions, and fortunately the Pats are still in it.

In the end, all we can do is hope that the Pats can make adjustments to resolve the above two issues during half time. If they do not, then they are going to have a very long night with only a tiny chance of winning.

World Series

The World Series ended last night with a whimper. It was interesting because all of the pundits highly favored the Tigers over the Cardinals. The series was indeed one-sided, but in the opposite way everyone expected. I personally thought that the Tigers were going to run away with it as well. Of course, I did not have strong feelings either way.

The frustration for me was that the series was not that close. The Cardinals clearly dominated throughout. I am okay with the Cardinals winning, but would have preferred a closer series.

From a gameplay perspective, you have to give the Cardinal credit for playing well. But, IMO, the Tigers lost the series as much as the Cardinals won it. The excessive amount of pitching errors and weak hitting had a key impact on the Tigers. They hit much better through the ALCS and series before that. All of their spark and performance disappeared in the World Series. Not sure why that is; part of the issue is probably due to the Cardinals play, but IMO, that does account for all of it.

Congrats to the Cardinals nonetheless. You clearly defied the expectations of the industry pundits. I just wish it was a closer series.

Congratulations to the Tigers

I am not too focused on MLB, but have taken a passing interest in the Detroit Tigers since their success against the Yankees. I have watching snippets of their games and have been wishing them success. Congratulations to them for their dominant series performance against the A’s. These teams looked very impressive in the series. Given the weakness of the the NL vs the AL in the regular season, it looks like the Tigers have a very good chance of winning the Series.

Patriots-Bengals

Most of the sports types this week have been lamenting the upcoming game between the Patriots and the Bengals. The Bengals has an outstanding offense with tall wide receivers and Carson Palmer leading the way. This is not a good pairing with the Patriots who have at best a questionable secondary and at worst a non-existent one. The only hope for the Pats is to play a position game using Dillon, Maroney and Faulk and try to create long drives and keep the Bengals offense off the field. We also need to hope that Tom Brady looks better. As I previously posted, Brady looked off of his game last week and if he plays the same this week, the Patriots are in serious trouble. Interestingly, the last I heard is that the Vegas line on the game is the Bengals by 6. That is not nearly as bad as I would have expected. Now I am not a gambler, but if I was, there is a good chance that I would take the Bengals despite the spread.

Patriots-Bengals Postgame

Wow, I am reeling from the game today. As I had previously posted, I was gave the Pats little chance of winning today. The Bengals looked too strong and the Pats too befuddled over the last few games. Thankfully, I was completely wrong. This was a huge game for them because the team had yet to step up with a championship game performance. They just barely won in the past games. In this case, they did exactly that and showed why it is they have won superbowls. The biggest question marks for the Pats this year has been the secondary and more recently the receivers. In this game, the secondary deserves extremely high marks by effectively shutting down Carson Palmer and the Bengals potent offense. They also had the ability to raise their defensive game when it counted. One of the weaknesses this year has been the defensive team's weakness on third down. This was not evident tonight and they were able to make big plays on third down. The receivers also looked good. Brady looked comfortable in the offense and with the receivers which is a dramatic change from last week. Hopefully this marks the turning point for the offense and we will see more consistent performance from them.