Beautiful Shot Of Qwest Field, Seattle, & The Sound

From an article about Seattle's chances of hosting a Super Bowl now that New Jersey/York get one.

(via The Tacoma News-Tribune)

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My Kind Of Seahawks

From an article in today's Seattle PI, more reasons to like Matt Hasselbeck and now-retired Mack Strong:

Last year after Matt Hasselbeck and Mack Strong gave President Bush an honorary Seahawks jersey at a $1,000-a-plate fundraiser for Rep. Dave Reichert, they took all kinds of heat.

Hasselbeck received nasty texts and e-mails, with one man saying, "I hate you, I'll never wear your jersey, I'll never like the Seahawks again." The meanness surprised him. His coach's wife, Kathy Holmgren, a staunch Democrat, was also upset about the two players giving Bush a jersey.

I miss Mack Strong. My dad, brother, and I met him at Seahawks training camp in the Summer of 2005. He was friendly and took time to shake everyone's hand and sign everything that anyone had for him to sign. He's a real class act.

Of course, Elizabeth Hasselbeck is Matt's sister-in-law. Good family. With any luck, I'll be voting for Matt for Senate from the state of Washington someday soon.


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Matt Hasselbeck On The Seahawks 0-2 Start

Per the Seattle PI's Gerry Spratt:

"I apologize to all the people who own me on their fantasy teams," he said. "They can put me on the bench for a little while. But I'm going to get it turned around."

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Sarah Palin Is A Seahawks Fan

Seth Kolloen seems to confirm that Sarah and her husband, Todd, are members of The Seahawkers--the Seahawks fan club in the state of Alaska.

Unfortunately, that fact doesn't make 0-2 look any better.

Never fear, Seahawkers & other Seahawks fans. The Hawks fundamentals are solid: good coaching, a solid offensive line, good QB in his prime, Top 5 defense, etc. Once they get a little stability at WR, they'll be back to their winning ways.


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How we got here

With our Seahawks down big, we figured we'd focus our energy elsewhere. Back to the blog.

Earlier this week we posted that we had been included in a blog competition. Starting this week, our blog will be evaluated by a panel of judges through the first week of April. We've told a number of our friends about this honor and they've been universally perplexed about how were fortunate enough to be considered.

Just before Christmas break, while working on an essay for one of our grad seminars, we were surfing the infernet and happened to come across the America's Future website. On the website we discovered a blog competition and decided to give it a try. Among other things, the application asked us to submit our 3 best posts. The first two were obvious--we felt passionately about the topic and they invited passionate response. But the last one took a little bit of thought.

To give it a little context, we'll post links to those posts here so you can evaluate for yourself whether or not our writing merited consideration.

The first post we submitted was one written in Feburary 2006. At the time, many BYU students, including many of our friends, got caught up in a ponzi scheme called 12daily Pro.

• 12daily Pro Exposed

In March 2006, BYUSA (the BYU student leadership/representative organization) concluded something like their 4th consecutive election with a winner by default. A well-meaning BYUSA employee wrote to the student newspaper, the Daily Universe, regarding a few changes that could be made to avoid similar problems in the future, and was subsequently terminated. This prompted another post.

• If You Can't Beat 'em (or shut them up)

Our third submission should have been 2 or 3 for one. First, consider one long-running theme of this blog: our love of Senator Joe Lieberman. We disagree with most of his politics, but have long admired his unpopular support of the War on Terror. In the midst of a primary fight against the Angry-Left candidate, Ned Lamont, we blogged in support of Lieberman.

• Saving Lieberman

Posted on this blog and in the BYU political publication, BYU Political Review, in October 2006, we blogged in favor of voting Republican even when it was clear the tide was turning in favor of the Democrats. Follow-up: The Dems were all-talk and never did follow through on their threat to pull out of Iraq. And The Surge? It worked. General Petraeus? Your Man Of The Year.

• Why You Should Vote Republican
  

Finally, in July 2007, we channelled our inner Peggy Noonan (style, not quality) and wrote about being an American grad student in London. This one was picked up by our hometown paper, the Tri-City Herald.

• Lybberty in Print

Tell your friends and family. Link to us in your blog. And visit OL&L early and often. The competition is stiff and we'll need all the help we can get. Thank you, dear reader, for your continued support.


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Roger Clemens, the Seahawks & New Hampshire

- In the '99 season, the Seahawks played the Packers at Green Bay in what was Mike Holmgren's first homecoming game. The Packers committed 7 turnovers with Brett Favre throwing 4 picks. If they win this Saturday, that's how they'll do it again--pressure the passer and force turnovers. Football Outsiders does a good job of analyzing the NFL at a macro level, but it breaks down at the team level because they simply can't devote enough attention to each team. The best Seahawks analysis used to come from Mike Sando at the Tacoma News Tribune's Seahawks Insider blog. Since Mike moved on to espn.com, the torch passed to John Morgan at fieldgulls.com.

- Robert Novak is reporting in Human Events (hat tip: Drudge Report) that Romney may be "rallying" in New Hampshire. Probably the best chance for Romney to over take McCain's advantage is, ironically, Barrack Obama. If Independents, McCain's key voting block, vote for Obama (in New Hampshire, they can vote for candidates in either party) Romney may win New Hampshire, as he leads among Republican voters.

- Roger Clemens is a bully and a cheater. Brian McNamee testified to George Mitchell that he personally administered drugs to Clemens. In his posterior. Clemens, in addition to being a cheater, is a bully, and thus, filed a lawsuit against McNamee. He knew that McNamee could ill-afford a fight against Clemens' largesse--especially since there doesn't seem to be a book deal in the offing.

All this places McNamee in a lose-lose situation. He faces criminal charges regardless of whether he withdraws his assertion that Clemens took steroids. This lawsuit, coming at a time when he also has a sick child, threatens to break him financially. Jail, financial ruin and a sick kid? That's a tough 1, 2, 3 punch.

Then, today, Clemens played a recorded phone conversation between he and McNamee. Who is handling Clemens' PR? This was clearly a staged conversation in which Clemens repeated prepared comments about his innocence and McNamee, well, McNamee is clearly distressed about his son's sickness and his place in the spotlight.

This might have been news if Clemens had gotten McNamee to confess that he had lied about injecting Clemens with steroids. McNamee confessed nothing of the sort. Instead, it smacked of a contrived attempt by Clemens and his big money lawyers to get out from under his alleged steroid use. Clemens repeatedly stated his innocence in the recorded phone conversation, while trying to come off conversational, inviting McNamee to admit that he lied. Clemens' attempt to talk McNamee into a confession seemed like bad writing for a bad cop show. Do yourself a favor, Roger, play less baseball and watch more TV.


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Bill Simmons: I heart Seattle

Because we love Seattle sports teams and all things Washington, we reproduce Bill Simmons bit from his Friday article about the NFL.

1. Loudest crowd I've ever heard. Seems like it's more due to the way the stadium is built than anything else -- for instance, Monday's crowd was 20 percent Packers fans and even they sounded abnormally loud.

2. We decided that Seattle can't be considered an underrated city because everyone always talks about how underrated it is, so now it's properly rated. But can you think of another city other than New York or Los Angeles that had a bigger cultural impact on this country over the past 16 years? Grunge music, Starbucks, microbrews, Microsoft, Amazon.com and even ESPN.com all started there. What other city can come up with six things to compare to those?

3. Highlight of the trip: Finding out that Seahawks tackle Walter Jones has a daughter named Waleria and a son named Walterius..

4. Seahawks fans really, really, REALLY don't like Jerramy Stevens. It's a palpable dislike. Don't think this won't be rearing its head in January.

5. If you can't get excited to attend a Monday Night Football game when it's snowing out, you need to stop following sports immediately.

And he didn't even mention Nordstrom, Boeing, Washington Mutual, or Costco. Seriously. How could he forget Costco? (Full Disclosure: We worked at Costco three summers in a row)


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Weekly Sports Review

Yeah, there's really no set date for this thing to appear. We thought we'd write it every Wednesday, but then we realized BYU basketball had a game at Boise State (they lost) which we were probably going to want to mention and the Sonics had an important game (they also lost) against Orlando. But none of that matters, because...........

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BYU Football BEAT UTAH!

Yup, despite pre- and gametime fatalism, BYU found a way to beat Utah. We say "found a way" because this is hardly a gimme for BYU. Losses the four previous years had effectively given Utah the mental edge. Whatever they may say about BYU trash talking them before each game (see Curtis Brown's confident predictions of victory), those pronouncements were never meant for them to read. Heck, they really weren't even meant for public consumption. More than anything else, they were intended to bolster the confidence of a team that had been all but owned by the yewts for four years. Anyone who suggests otherwise is deluding themselves. Utah's mental advantage in this game was huge and probably had something to do with the overall "wanting it more" we referred to in last week's Sports Review.

The thing about the game is this: BYU came out focused and did to Utah what they have done to every other MWC team this season. They put up points early. Here's the difference: Utah didn't respond the same way every other MWC team has this season. That is to say, they didn't roll over and play dead. Of course they didn't, BYU is their rival. BYU shouldn't have expected them to and you can blame this on whatever you want--hubris, lack of focus, whatever--but it was plainly obvious that BYU didn't play the 2nd and the 3rd quarters the same way they did the 1st and 4th. What they need to understand is that they can't play that way against Oregon in the Vegas Bowl. BYU has to put together a complete game against a good team.

It's funny to read the yewts message boards because they universally believe that officials are biased in favor of BYU. If asked, we think BYU fans would say exactly the opposite--that there is a decided anti-BYU bias among officials. Considering that BYU is annually (and historically) one of the most penalized teams in the nation, BYU fans would seem to be right, but then again, it's a very difficult thing to detect a bias. We once heard one of our friends on the team comment that BYU had been flagged for three penalties one year that weren't called on another team in the whole of Division I. He knew, because when they were called he didn't believe they were real penalties/rules and proceeded to look them up in the rulebook. How he was able to find that they weren't called anywhere else is beyond us and is typical of such sports heresay. Take it, therefore, with a grain of salt.

All of this is to say, don't blame the refs because BYU won. It is true that Utah could have won if the refs didn't throw the flag, but so what? They could have won anyway. The same is true of our beloved Seahawks. Anyone who watched the Superbowl knows those were egregious (please cougarboarders, spell this word correctly) penalties. As the mtn. talking heads noted, if the defender doesn't look for the ball, and makes contact, they're going to flag you every time. In response, the yewts populating every message board then went to the rulebook and use that nifty copy and paste feature and proceeded to instruct us in the finer points of pass interference and how face guarding isn't a penalty in college. Fine. Whatever. What matters is how pass interference is interpreted by the officials and how it has always been interpreted. When has a defender ever not looked for the ball, made contact with the receiver, and not been called for pass interference? It gets called all the time, not just against Utah when they are playing BYU.

We wont go into the complex beauty of the last play because a Cougarboarder code named TheDash has done so perfectly. Click here. For video highlights of the game we thank Cougarboard and you can click here for those as well. We recommend the one put together by Cougarboarder TSN.

Looking ahead, the game against Oregon should provide plenty of drama. But it shouldn't be written as a Crowton vs. Cougars because the truth is, he isn't against the Cougars. We hope fans wont say, "now is the chance to kick Crowton for causing the four worst years in BYU Football history." As Coach Mendenhall notes, Mr. Crowton is still interested in BYU Football's success. Hopefully winning a bowl game for the first time since 1996 is enough to motivate the team and its fans. It's enough to motivate us, and yes, we'll see you at the game.

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BYU Basketball

With meetings to attend early (11am) this morning, we didn't stay up last night to listen to BYU play Boise St. on the radio. And it's just as well as they ended up losing 72-68. We will limit, as a result, our observations to just a couple of things. BYU lost to a lesser team on the road because they did not come out and play hard in the first half the way they did in the second to cut Boise State's huge lead. Whose fault is it that they start the game unfocused and uninspired? The Seniors? Coach Rose? After a promising showing against UCLA (promising despite the turnovers), BYU still hasn't won a game on the road. With an upcoming game against Michigan St., it would behoove BYU to get their act together so they can put on a good show for the tournament selection committee--that is, if they want to go to the NCAA Tournament in March.

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Gregg Easterbrook is stil a moron

In other news, Gregg Easterbrook aka TMQ, a writer for espn.com Page 2 gives us more of his blatant, basic-law-of-economics-defying-populism with his not-so-veiled attack on pharmaceutical companies.

"Placebon™ will be extremely expensive, thus increasing demand. Pharmaceutical companies will treat doctors to lavish dinners, send them on all-expense-paid cruises and hand out handsome 'consulting' fees to get them to prescribe Placebon™. Controlled clinical studies will fail to show that Placebon™ is any more effective than breathing, but the manufacturer will lobby the Food and Drug Administration not to report this. Celebrities will be hired to have public breakdowns, then make spectacular recoveries by taking Placebon™. A saccharine version, Diet Placebon™, will be marketed. Initially, many insurers will refuse to pay for Placebon™. But as senior citizens stream across the Canadian border to buy low-cost government-subsidized Placebon™, politicians will demand that insurers pay, and the health care share of the GDP will rise again. Eventually a generic will be available at discount, while the patent holder makes a tiny molecular change in order to maintain proprietary pricing of advanced Placebon 24", a longer-lasting version.

Placebon will be extremely expensive thus increasing demand? That's not what we learned in Econ 110: 'All together class, as price increases, demand goes down.' He's talking about a placebo but his critique of drug companies and the FDA is clear. Of course, he must think that pharmaceutical companies spend hundreds of millions of dollars to develop wonder drugs out of the goodness of their hearts. We shouldn't have a problem with this arrangement. Without the big dollars involved, drug companies wouldn't spend the big bucks and take risks to develop breakthroughs that make life better. Sure, some doctors are looking for the cure to cancer because it makes them feel warm inside, but a far greater number of them do so because of the financial incentive. Take that money away from drug companies and they will simply cease to gamble on research and development. Though we may get today's drugs cheaper, tomorrow's drugs will never be developed because there is simply no incentive to do so.

We've written about health care before at length. Rising health care costs are a result of another economics problem called the "tragedy of the commons." It holds that when something is shared by everyone, rather than being owned by someone, everyone will use it as much as possible without any regard to its future condition, because if they don't, someone else will. In government or business sponsored health groups, with a small or no co-pay, individuals have every incentive to go to the doctor all the time. They do so because if they don't someone else will. They do so because rather than increasing wages, companies increase health benefits (incidentally, companies increase health benefits because government taxes wages, but not the health care they provide), effectively paying their employees in health care. This has something to do with the lack of increase in real wages. And because they go to the doctor every time they have the slightest cold or back ache, and when they do go, they get every test and medicine allowable, health care costs go up for everyone.

Back to the sports part of this column

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Seattle Seahawks

First off, a little bit of business we neglected to take care of last week. Does anyone know if Sports Illustrated actually does any research for their articles? As part of their NFL Preview issue, SI listed the best local coverage for each team, be it a newspaper, blog, etc. For the Seahawks they listed the Seattle Post Intelligencer. We don't have a horse in this race, but anyone who knows anything about Seahawks coverage, knows that the best in the game is the Tacoma News-Tribune--specifically Mike Sando and his incredible blog. In the last two weeks extending from before the Seahawks-49ers game until today, the Seattle PI has had three entries. In that same time Mike Sando at TNT has posted literally dozens (we quit counting once we got into the 30s) of entries to his Seahawks Insider blog. Mr. Sando produces all sorts of sortable stats from passes dropped, to red-zone defense, to a 33 category roster--33 categories! He even makes audio from interviews available via podcast which you can subscribe to on iTunes. Seriously, this guy is the best--the best! In true Bill Simmons fashion, we wont even listen to argument about this point. It is not debatable. The only thing half-way hokey about his whole deal is how he picks teams each week but does not pick them against the spread. Anyone can pick straight winners and losers. Few people can pick successfully against the spread--just ask us. Including his wife in this competition seems like just a bit of a ESPN Page 2 Bill Simmons knockoff. Still, we read Sando constantly and our life is better for it.

The Seahawks beat the crummy Packers despite 4 turnovers. Any team that can beat another team despite four turnovers is doing pretty well. We stayed up late to watch this game on channel 5 over here in London. What an experience that was. Whenever the American broadcast would go to commercial, the British feed would go to these two guys sitting in some studio in London where one guy, who apparently last played organized football for Wesleyan back in 1969, proceeds to describe what just happened using every word imaginable except for the correct football term to describe the action. If he did use a correct term--like say, tackle--it was mis-used. At one point they went into a portion of the show where they read viewer emails and responded. One viewer asked for a birthday wish and the guy, we'll call him Mike, said happy birthday in this creepy voice and gave the camera a wink and a nod. Meanwhile back in America, Vince Lombardi rolled over in his grave. Michael Irvin would be a positive influence on this production.

But the Seahawks won. Seattle's offensive line started the gel, Shaun Alexander looked like the MVP, Matt Hasselbeck shook off the early rust and looked really good throwing a beautiful fade pass to D-Jack in the endzone that was even more amazing because of the adverse conditions (read: snow and ice). That's right, the first snow game in Seattle history. The defense shut down Green Bay's run and aside from playing in a field shortened by Hasselbeck's early turnovers, really played well. All three cornerbacks had picks (thank you Brett Favre).

2006 was never going to be 2005 for the Seahawks. But this is a team that looks like it's starting to put things together. The early difficulties on defense had a lot to do with an offense that regularly put them in tough spots. With Mr. Hasselbeck back and Mr. Alexander improving, the defense should respond as they feel less pressure to win the game on their own. Jerramy Stevens needs to get his head right. That's all we're going to say about him. The line needs to continue to improve their run and pass blocking. But with master-teacher/coach Mike Holmgren running the show, the Seahawks should make another run in the playoffs.

On Sunday the Seahawks play the Broncos in primetime (the night game). Having Jay Cutler start at QB for the Broncos will help, but this game will still be a good test for the Seahawks who have only played medium to weak teams thus far.

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Sonics

We've never understood the finer points of the mental game played between coaches and players, you know, the one supposedly perfected by the Sun Tzu of NBA coaches, Phil Jackson. But apparently that's what's been going on over the past couple of days as Seattle coach Bob Hill feuded with the three main players on his bench--Earl Watson, Dominique Wilkins, and Nick Collison. Mr. Hill at one point called out Mr. Wilkins saying that he was "pouting" because he wasn't getting the playing time he thought he should. After airing his grievances to the press, Mr. Hill met separately with Mr. Watson and Mr. Wilkins where they each expressed their loyalty and eternal affection and Mr. Watson made some vague reference to a Jay-Z song from Hard Knock Life Vol. 2 saying that he would "ride with" Mr. Hill.

We hope by "ride with" he means win a few games at home because the Sonics are 2-6 at home and it looks like the public relations blitz they needed to mount via a winning season to coax a fat tax subsidy from fans, is failing. Which really, really bugs us. We enjoy watching the Sonics--especially when they're good. They have talent and potential but they don't play defense and they, as Mr. Hill notes, are immature in how they play the game. Last week's game against San Antonio provides the perfect context. We know lots of people hate the Spurs. They aren't a glamorous team that wins by scoring lots of points like Phoenix. But they win a lot of games because they rebound, play defense, and take advantage of the other teams turnovers and weaknesses. The Sonics are young and inconsistent. They played their immature inconsistent game against the Spurs and San Antonio played theirs and the predictable happened. It really is as simple as that. Which leads us to conclude that it is on Mr. Hill to figure out a way to convince his players, teach them, Phil Jackson them, do whatever he has to in order to get them to win games.

Truth is, we'll probably lose them to Oklahoma either way.

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Seattle Mariners

No news is bad news. A pool of pitchers short on talent with teams long on demand means that a team like the Mariners who still haven't signed anyone, are rapidly running out of options. Our #1 guy, Barry Zito, is still on the market and we hope the Mariners will be sensible enough to break the bank to get this guy. They can fill in the other two open spots in the pitching rotation with Jake Woods and Cha Seung Baek. The Mariners could use another bat, but after signing Mr. Zito they wont have much cash left (because they haven't kept pace with inflation since the first budget jump in the Safeco Era). They should follow the A's example from last year and sign a Frank Thomas. Someone who is old and slow but who still gets on base and hits for power.

We wish they'd cowboy up and sign Manny Ramirez thereby proving to Red Sox nation that, despite his quirks, Ramirez is the most important hitter in their lineup, but we know that wont happen.

It would make too much sense.


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an angst filled Sports Review!

This is a new thing here at OL&L. In the past sports and pop culture frequently found their way into our posts. In the new round of posting that began a couple weeks before the midterm election, most everything has been political. And to be completely honest, we're getting a little bored by non-stop politics.

So this will be the first in what may become a "Weekly Sports Review"--a weekly survey of some of our favorite teams in sports. It will primarily deal with BYU Football and Basketball, and the Seattle Seahawks, Sonics, and Mariners. These are our five favorite teams. Occasionally the UW, WSU (Washington State, not Weber), and Gonzaga may also merit mention--usually only when the first five teams are sucking and we have to look somewhere, anywhere for a new bandwagon.

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BYU Basketball

We've stayed up till the wee hours of the morning to listen to the first two games of the season on ksl.com and have the sleep-deprived headaches to prove it. The Cougars lost the first gameon the road against UCLA and according to the Greg Wrubell and news accounts the day after, BYU had no one to blame but themselves. They stayed in the game and even went up by as many as 9 points in the first half despite attempting committing huge amounts of turnovers. The stat line at the end of the game showed BYU attempted 11 fewer field goals than BYU. This is due largely to two things: turnovers and poor offensive rebounding. The Cougars turned the ball over 23 times to 13 by UCLA. UCLA dominated offensive rebounds 14 to 3.

That's the game right there.

That said, it does not help that UCLA gets additional help from the officials. The Cougars made 7 of 10 free throws while the Bruins hit 21 of 30. In other words, officials called BYU for 3x as many fouls as the Bruins. This sort of homecooking makes winning the game nearly impossible. Probably the best example of this differential is found in the Bruins gameplan against Trent Plaisted. They went after him early and often and the officials obliged their efforts. By getting him to commit early fouls (ticky-tack or otherwise) they effectively neutralized him and in so doing, put BYU's best rebounder, post player, scorer, etc. on the bench.

Now, this game is old news but it is important because this is exactly the sort of gameplan you will see executed against BYU again and again this season. It should be familiar because it was the same one that played out all year last year. Get Mr. Plaisted out and the rest of the team falls apart. The Cougars can't control the officiating but they can rebound better and take care of the ball. And Mr. Plaisted has got to find a way to stay in the game.

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BYU Football

Is the Cougar resurgence and our absence from Provo a coincidence? We hope so. We've personally attended 5 games between BYU and Utah: '99 in Provo, 2002 @Utah, '03 in Provo, '04 @ Utah, and '05 in Provo. All of those games were losses for BYU. Well, to appease the football gods, we're staying in London for this game and limiting our participation to ksl.com internet radio. On a side note, many thanks to KSL for providing this service. To listen to Seattle area teams we had to shell out hard earned cash and listened to the Seahawks get it handed to them by the 49ers.

The 2002-'04 losses to Utah seemed to have a common thread--Utah seemed to want to win more than BYU did. Of course there were those on the BYU side who played hard--Curtis Brown is one example--but as a whole, BYU seemed to care about the game less than the Utes. This may have something to do with the fact that Utah just cares more about this rivalry than BYU does. And there may be something to this argument. As a native of the state of Washington, we don't really understand all the ins and outs of the rivalry and how it extends into local high schools and involves (or doesn't) religion and politics and on and on. There are are more Utah natives on the Ute roster. They were born and raised in this rivalry while many BYU players hailing from California, Arizona, Washington, etc., are more familiar with the rivalries in their own home states. Maybe this is the reason they don't care as much. It doesn't hold the longtime meaning for them that it does for the players from the school to the north. Players and coaches have mentioned to the media that they think that last year they were too fired up and somehow this caused them to come out flat and fall behind the Utes forcing a furious comeback in the second half. Whatever.

BYU is solid on both sides of the ball this year. Yes, the defense is improved but some of this improvement is due to the fact that they didn't face Notre Dame and the Mountain West as a whole is experiencing something of a down year. We're still bothered that BYU got beat by BCS lightweights Arizona and Boston College. We think the team is good. But what, exactly, do you point to in order to prove your point? A good record against mediocre teams in the Mountain West? Numbers inflated by playing bad defenses? Ditto for defense? The only way BYU is ever going to get any national credibility whatsoever is by pounding crummy non-conference BCS teams and then beating a decent team in a bowl game. Unfortunately this year, it doesn't look as though the Pac-10 will oblige. They have SC and Cal and then a whole bunch of teams that beat up on each other and even the Trojans and Golden Bears aren't as tough as in past years. Consider this: the Pac-10 has been so medium, it's conceivable BYU could have a rematch against Arizona. Give us a break. With any luck Oregon will fall into the #4 slot and we'll get all the inevitable drama from the Crowton vs. BYU matchup. That's about the best BYU fans can hope for this year.

Finally, congrats to Curtis Brown on the rushing record. The last two years we've called again and again for BYU to get the ball to CB and this year they did it and they've won consistently. Less noted is the fact that Mr. Brown leads the team in receptions. He is the consummate team player. He has never complained about losing carris to Fui Vakapuna and has been consistent in placing team goals (just win, baby) over personal goals like the BYU rushing record.

Last year we predicted that BYU would win the conference championship. Vindication is always nice. But that vindication will be hollow if BYU doesn't take care of business against Utah. Regardless of record, this game always seems to be hard fought. We may be in a minority of one, but we'd take pounding Utah over the conference championship.

Moving along.

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If we were the Tuesday Morning Quarterback aka, Gregg Easterbrook, and conservative (rather than liberal/populist like him), we'd insert an aside here about how the protectionism suggested by some Democrats is stupid because it hurts Americans in terms of cost of living and also job creation. We'd argue that people worried about outsourcing of thousands of jobs ignore the tens of thousands of jobs that are created as a result. But of course, Mr. Easterbrook doesn't have to fit his cute little sociopoliticaleconomic observations inside of economic reality. It's easy to criticize Wal-mart ad nauseum as he does if one simply ignores all relevant economic data regarding the positive impact Wal-Mart's business practices have on America.

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Seahawks

Thanks to the cold blooded kicking of Josh Brown, The Seahawks have a winning record. If Mr. Brown misses those three field goals, the 'Hawks could be staring 3-7 in the face and people would be talking about the curse of the Super Bowl losers. We like Bill Simmons theory better. Basically it holds that official intervention led to a Steelers win but that the football gods ignore these outcomes and curse the team that should have lost the Super Bowl--the Steelers. A quick check of their record would confirm the basic assumptions of this theory.

Mike Holmgren has a different take on the Madden Curse that seems to have afflicted Shaun Alexander, keeping him out of games until last week's loss to San Francisco. Mr. Holmgren believes that being on the cover of the game does not make one more susceptible to injuries but that being on the cover makes players higher profile and encourages every team to take extra shots at the high profile Madden coverboy--in this case, Mr. Alexander. It doesn't help that Mr. Alexander plays for a team that won the NFC and made it to the Super Bowl. That type of streak puts a big bullseye on the collective team's back and encourages everybody to take their best shot.

And the Seahawks have had the injuries to prove it. Walt Jones, all-world left tackle has been hobbled by injuries all year. Floyd Womack, starting left guard and Steve Hutchinson replacement has been out. Robbie Tobeck dealt first with shoulder surgery and then a flu that has cost him two games and lots of weight and strength. Chris Gray is old, but reliable, thank goodness. Sean Locklear was suspended one game for substance abuse and has missed the last two with a high ankle sprain. And that's just the offensive line. Matt Hasselbeck has missed four games (we already talked about Mr. Alexander), backup TE Itula Mili has been injured, Jerramy Stevens missed the first few games, came back, and promptly sucked it up. the WRs have been solid and are definitely the strength of the team. Darrel Jackson leads the league in receiving touchdowns with 8. Deion Branch, Superbowl MVP, lines up on the other side and is better than solid. They have missed Bobby Engram who is on this team because all he does is convert 3rd downs. He's not fast and he's not big but he gets open and he always, always (except for that 2004 playoff game against the Rams) catches the ball. He has been missed.

The defense has no such excuses. They were good last year and with the addition of Julian Peterson, they should have been Top 5--at least Top 10. Instead they're hovering somewhere between Cleveland and Atlanta. Seriously, there is no excuse for this defense. Rather than improving or even holding constant, they have regressed. The only good statistic for this squad is that they are second in the league in sacks with 35. All that does is tell you that every once in a while they decide they are going to play so they can get the sexy sack and the rest of the time they are just kind of there. Frank Gore is good, but the Seahawks made him look like LaDainian Tomlinson. And speaking of LT, the Seahawks better hope that one of two things happens before they play the Chargers in Week 16--either they get their act together or the Chargers have homefield advantage locked up and sit all of their starters. Even then, Michael Turner might run all over the 'Hawks defense.

Enough with the doom and gloom. Mike Holmgren remains one of the best coaches in the NFL. He has a proven track record as head coach in Green Bay and Seattle. He was an effective assistant in San Francisco. Once the Seahawks get players back from injury the offense will start the click and take some of the pressure off of the defense. Plus, on the postive side, it's not as though the defense is getting beat because they lack the talent. They are in position, they are simply not make tackles. This is an easily correctable problem.

Watch for the Seahawks to win this week against a crummy Packers team and go on a run. They will win the NFC West (not saying much, we know) and make a run in the playoffs. The elements are there to get it done.

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Sonics

Writing about our favorite Seattle sports teams gets progressively more depressing as we go down the list.

The Sonics are 5-7 in their 40th year in Seattle but face the prospect of moving to Oklahoma City at the end of the year barring some plan to build them a new arena. We've read everything we can about this problem and are convinced that the current situation at Key Arena wont work. The Sonics can't make money the way things are now. But this doesn't necessarily mean that they deserve a corporate handout. So the Seahawks and Mariners got sweet stadiums built for them thanks to the taxpayers, so what? Does this mean that Seattle (Washington really, as the taxes affect more than just King County) should build a stadium for every professional sports team that wants one in Seattle. And how long, exactly, before either of the first two teams--Mariners, Seahawks--come looking for more, for another stadium. Are the current ones good for ten years, 20?

This issues raises a whole other set of questions. Should profession sports be run like a business? If it is to be run as a business, should it be run as one that is profitable from year to year or only profitable upon sale of the team. Coffee Tycoon Howard Schultz and the rest of his ownership group insisted that they lost millions of dollars, but then they sold the Sonics for $350 million. That's $150 million more than the $200 million they spent five years earlier. Granted, some of the purchase price was an assumption of debt, but still, did they or didn't they make money on the transaction?

We believe that owning a professional sports team should fall somewhere between business and hobby. We buy ski equipment from year to year and enjoy it immensely but we don't expect to make a profit off of it. Of course professional sports aren't the same as a hobby like skiing, but we don't believe they should be treated like an out and out business either.

We love the Sonics and follow them daily. Growing up, we followed the Sonics teams of Gary Payton and Shawn Kemp and unwisely bet our uncle when they played the Bulls in the NBA Championship. We attended a game versus the Kings during the 2005 playoffs and the Key Arena (the Sonics current venue) was rockin'. It is a great place to watch games. We don't want the Sonics to leave but we don't want to build the Sonics a several hundred million dollar arena at little to no cost to the team either.

This Sonics team has a lot of potential. They have Ray Allen. Rashard Lewis looks ready to be a perennial All-Star. Luke Ridnour is finally coming into his own. Chris Wilcox is ready to break out. Bob Hill seems to be a good coach. and 12 games plus his run to end the year is not enough to judge. Give the Sonics the month of December and then we'll talk about the direction of the team. They need to go on a run like the Mariners circa 1995 to have a chance at persuading the public to build them something new. We hope it happens. In the meantime, we'll be watching their games on the foxsports.com gamecast.

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Mariners

Talk about a dissappointment. We love the Mariners. But for the last three years, this love has been unrequited.

We are an admitted believer in the Moneyball approach. This wasn't a book just about the importance of OPS (on base percentage + slugging percentage) but a book about finding value where others didn't. That's the lesson of Billy Beane and the Oakland Athletics. Ever year people say, "well, this is the year they are finally going to eat it," and every year, they win. They win because Beane is able to identify value and acquire it and because he is good at making a deal.

A few years ago the Mariners had an outside shot at getting Billy Beane. Whether it was money or partial ownership or whatever, missing out on getting him as GM was the biggest single Mariners personnel mistake in the last decade. Forget about losing Griffey (that one still hurts) or A-Rod or Randy Johnson. If the Mariners had gotten Mr. Beane they wouldn't have wasted time and money on Jeff Cirillo or Scott Spiezio. Instead of signing Carl Everett the Mariners might have gotten Frank Thomas. Seriously Bill Bavasi (current M's GM), how do you sign Carl Everett over Frank Thomas in any year? The A's paid less and got way, way more from Mr. Thomas. Mr. Bavasi is loved by the old school baseball establishment. Which is to say, he resists against the grain evaluation that might give him an advantage.

If the Mariners were smart, they would pay free agent pitcher Barry Zito whatever he wants and then get some cheap back of the rotation pitcher or promote from within. If they are serious about pursuing Jason Schmidt then Mr. Bavasi will prove himself to be the fool we think he is. Schmidt is the classic National League player who has a decent (not good) ERA and barely wins more than he loses--IN THE NATIONAL LEAGUE WEST. The NL west is baseball's worst division. One more time, Mr. Schmidt went 11-9 in baseball's worst division. Mr. Zito, on the other hand, went 16-10 with a 3.83 ERA in the American League in a division with (minus the M's) good offenses. He will be younger--28 vs. 34--and is left handed. It's important to note that of the Big 3, Zito is the one Mr. Beane kept. And he would keep him again this year except that Mr. Zito will price himself out of the A's range. But not the Mariners. The Mariners can afford him.

The issue of the Mariner's payroll is another issue that irks about this team. When they announce what they will pay their players in a given year, they say, 'well, it's going to stay about the same.' And stupid sportswriters let them get away with it. In 2001 the Mariners supposedly bumped their payroll to about $90 million. And then it stayed the same for the next four years. Is there a sportswriter in the city of Seattle who has heard of inflation?

Assuming they adjusted 2.5% per year for inflation, to keep things the same, their budget should have gone to $92,250,000 in '02, $94,556,250 in '03, $96,920,156.25 in '04, $99, 343,160.16 last year, and $101,826,739.16.

We understand that the numbers clubs release are just projected budgets, but should sportswriters at least make them be honest about those numbers. Rather than saying, "we're going to keep the same number as last year--$90 million," can't someone say, "well, that $90 million isn't the same $90 million it was back in 2001, now it's worth far less. You are, in fact, deceiving fans by telling them that your budget is the same."

Please Mr. Bavasi, spend the money to get Barry Zito.


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