JD’S WEEKLY MUSINGS
By Dan Pearson
For Positively Osceola
For your sports reading entertainment AND before it is available in stores….another edition of Positively Osceola’s JD’s Morning Musings…
In the 14 years that I worked for the Orlando Predators, Assistant Coach Les Moss would say to me every year that the NFL Divisional Round weekend was “the best weekend in pro football.” His reasoning was always sound. After you get rid of a few questionable wild card teams, you were left with eight really accomplished teams and four potentially great games—two on Saturday and two on Sunday. While in principle he was correct, the weekend didn’t always live up to the hype–except this year it did. It was not only the best weekend of the 2021 season, but it was the best weekend of NFL football ever….
A couple of quick takeaways from the weekend: My Gator friends have spent the last two days gushing about how their boy Evan McPherson “won the game” and was the “game’s big hero” for kicking four field goals, including the game-winner. Fine, but a little reality check is in order. Without the super gutsy performance of Joe Burrow, who threw for 348 yards while being sacked nine times, McPherson would be a footnote. Burrow and the Cincinnati defense were the real heroes of that game, period. Buffalo Bills fans will now spend the next month bitching about how unfair overtime rules are. Hogwash. What would have happened if they were given the opportunity and scored a tying touchdown and then Kansas City scores again? Are you going to start demanding equal possessions until a winner is declared? There’s a reason World Cup soccer went to penalty kicks, games can lot last six hours. Just saying, if Buffalo played a little defense and didn’t let Patrick Mahomes drive his team into field goal position in just two plays and 13 seconds you would not have had to worry about overtime.
Tom Brady came up a little short and I know that makes a lot of haters happy and as much as I like Tampa Bay (even before TB 12), they frankly did not deserve to win that game. On the other hand, if they pulled it out, I would have also said the Rams deserved to lose because they turned the ball over four times when they could have put the game out of reach prior to three of them. Which brings me to my final three points: How’d that home-field advantage work for all four teams? And how did that extra week of rest work for Green Bay and Tennessee? Finally, I sincerely doubt that anything we are going to see next week or in the Super Bowl is going to top what we saw this weekend. Had a friend post on his Facebook page that the Kansas City – Buffalo game should have been the Super Bowl and I can’t argue with that….
Last week, Major League Baseball told Tampa Bay Rays owner Stuart Sternberg that they would not approve of his plan for his team to play half their home games in Tampa and the other half in Montreal. From a logistical standpoint, it would have been a nightmare for the players and staff—especially those with young families — and it is doubtful the players association would ever buy into the idea without major compensation. But that aside, I can’t help but wonder if Sternberg knew this idea would never fly in the first place and was just using it as leverage so he could say he “did everything possible to keep a team in St. Petersburg.” In my opinion, his end game is to move the team to a bigger market, with a new stadium with more revenue potential. Owners of major teams no longer try to sell the myth that they are losing money. With all major league baseball teams equally splitting a massive national media rights fee pot (about $1.4 billion) and, despite attendance figures, Tampa Bay also earns significant local television revenue (The Rays numbers on Bally Sports are extremely good). Add in a modest payroll and there’s no way Sternberg is not making money—a lot of money — with the Rays. The real question though is how much more could he make with a new stadium and/or a different market and that is why I think he will continue to pursue opportunities in other cities or hold the city of Tampa/St. Pete hostage for a new building…
The great Marvin Lee Aday, a.k.a. Meatloaf, died last week. A lot of rock fans did not take him seriously but I thought he was a heck of an entertainer. I had an opportunity to see him in concert half a dozen times through the years. Back in the early 1990s Meatloaf was involved in a massive lawsuit with his record label. At the time, he was not putting out new albums and he was often forced to play club venues. Twice, I was lucky enough to catch him at a small bar called Finkys in Daytona Beach. One of my favorite memories came when Loaf resolved some of his legal issues and came out with the “Bat Out of Hell II” album that he was promoting in a concert show at the old Orlando Arena. In a brief chat between songs, he mentioned the legal troubles with his label and said it was great to be back in front of big audiences again. At that time huge plumes of fog started rising from the stage for his next number causing Meatloaf to scream …” I can even afford real $%#%& fog again!” It’s interesting to note that Bat Out of Hell, which came out in 1977, remains the fourth best-selling album of all time…
If you were waiting for me to tie Meatloaf into sports, remember his lyric from the song “All Revved Up And No Place to Go,” where he sang “I was a varsity tackle and a hell of a block”….
He’ll forever be ridiculed for the “butt fumble” but just remember one thing, former Jets quarterback Mark Sanchez still has more playoff wins than Dak Prescott, Kyler Murray, Kirk Cousins, Lamar Jackson, and Derek Carr COMBINED…
Say what??? Great sports quotes from days gone by….”Do I feel I am the best? Yes, I do feel that I am the best….but you will never hear me say that…” Jerry Rice. “I was lost, but I did a 360 and got headed in the right direction…” Tracy McGrady. It’s simple enough. All great drivers will always have one foot on the brake, one on the clutch, and one on the throttle….” Racecar announcer Bob Varsha. “The only thing that keeps this organization from being recognized as one of the finest in baseball is wins and losses at the major league level…” former Rays GM Chuck LaMarr. “The problem with the media is you guys keep writing what I say, not what I mean…” former Dodger Pedro Guerrero. And even the best in the business Bill Belichick gets it wrong sometimes. “I don’t think there’s anybody in this organization that is not focused on the 49ers right now…err I mean the Chargers.”
Y’all have a great week.
