Weekly Sporties

-As professional sports league trading deadlines go, the NFL's is usually by the far the most uneventful. In the past it has taken place after week 6 of the season, when too many teams are either still in contention or healthy enough to not have a major need. And with non-guaranteed salaries which are easy to offload at any point, historically football hasn't had the teams looking to dump salaries like the NBA and MLB, which means there just haven't been enough sellers to make the day interesting. To try and drum up a little bit more interest (because God forbid there was one day when the NFL wasn't on every one's minds), this year the league decided to move the deadline back to week 8. Then, Hurricane Sandy forced it to be backed up even more, from Tuesday to Thursday. So, what did 32 NFL teams decided to do with 16 extra days to negotiate and evaluate? Not a damn thing, that's what. For the week several big names had been floating around, from Carolina's DeAngelo Williams and the Rams' Steven Jackson to media darling Tim Tebow (who really should just go to Jacksonville and get it over with). In the end, all of them remained with their teams. There was only one minor deal (which we will get to in a second), and none of the moves made prior to the deadline were the kind which shook the landscape of the league. I applaud the league for trying to make their trading deadline more interesting, but the simple fact is they can't make teams trade with one another (not yet, anyway). I guess the League will simply have to live with the fact that everyone was talking about the upcoming games all day instead.

-As I mentioned, there was only one deal at the deadline, but it involved the Patriots which makes it worthy of some more attention here. New England traded a mid-level pick in next year's draft to Tampa Bay for cornerback Aqib Talib. On the surface this seems like a really smart move because the Pats' secondary has been awful all season long and Talib has been a very good corner, with 18 career interceptions in four seasons. The problem is that he has to be on the field to get those interceptions and Talib has had several run-ins with the law in his brief career. In fact, he won't be able to debut for the Patriots for another couple of weeks because he is currently suspended for taking a banned substance and is one more misstep away from being suspended for an entire year. While this move is actually very low-risk because Talib is a free agent after the year and if he screws up the Patriots can simply cut him, I wonder what this says about the Patriots as an organization. I thought after the failed experiments of signing guys like Albert Haynesworth and Chad Ochocinco, the Patriots would have been done with who most likely will not be worth the trouble. People keep saying that guys like this go to the Patriots immediately shape up, but the evidence shows that certainly hasn't been the case lately. It would be great for the team if Talib came in, stayed out of trouble and solidified the secondary, but there is also the risk he may start teaching the young players some really bad habits. It makes this move feel rather desperate and causes me to worry if coach Bill Belichick is starting to see the window of Tom Brady being an elite quarterback is closing, so he needs to win while he can - no matter what the cost.

-As if to prove my point about the NBA being much better than the NFL when it comes to players switching teams, right before the start of the season the Oklahoma City Thunder traded James Harden to the Houston Rockets. Harden is one of the 25 best players in the NBA right now as well as the reigning 6th Man of the Year so you may be wondering why the Thunder shipped out a 23 year-old with such a bright future ahead of him. The answer, as it always is, was money. Between Harden, Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook the Thunder had an embarrassment of riches. But the problem with having all that young talent at the same time is that they all come up for new contracts at the same time. With Durant and Westbrook already signed up there simply wasn't any money left for Harden (at least, that is what the Thunder are claiming). While I understand that in principle, I do not like the move. The Thunder were in the NBA Finals last year and had a chance to make it back this season. The array of players they got back for Harden may give them some more depth, but I'm not sure it makes them any better. (In Harden's first two games with the Rockets he scored 38 and 45 points, so he may be even better than we all thought.) To me the smarter move would have been to keep Harden, played out the season and then let the chips fall where they may. I'm sure there are people who think that opens you to the risk of Harden leaving for nothing in return, but I've found fans are a lot more willing to accept that sort of thing if you just won a title. Instead, in a couple years we'll be left wondering just how good the Thunder could have been, which is a real shame if you love the game of basketball.

-As you can imagine, Hurricane Sandy created a lot of problems on the East Coast and caused a lot of sporting events to be cancelled. For example, the highly-anticipated match-up between the Knicks and new-look Nets in Brooklyn had to be postponed until the end of November. At first it looked as though the New York Marathon would not be on that list of cancelled or postponed events. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg pledged that the race would go on because it would be uplifting to the city and not take away from any of the relief efforts to get power back on in the areas which are still trying to recover. However, after a couple days of hearing about how that may not be the best use of the city's time, effort and manpower, Bloomberg changed his mind and cancelled the marathon. I have to say, I think cancelling it is probably the right thing to do. To me it doesn't even have to do with whether or not police would be better off in other parts of the city, but everything to do with infrastructure. The subways still aren't running at their pre-hurricane pace and considering they are telling people that they shouldn't come into the city unless the absolutely have to, I don't see how shutting down more roads and adding 30,000 people to the mix is the best way to get things back to normal. I do feel bad for the runners who have been training for months for this moment, but the simple fact is that all they've wasted is time, while some people in the city have lost everything. The marathon organizers should allow all qualifiers to run in next year's marathon and just move on, because no one wants to hear a bunch of runner complaining about their travel plans. Besides, runners are always telling me how they are running against themselves, so throw on a pair of headphones and run your own personal marathon. Just stay on the sidewalk if you do, because New York City cabbies are unlikely to respect your unofficial route.

-One event that didn't need a hurricane to be cancelled was the NHL's Winter Classic, where teams play an outdoor game in an unusual setting. Previous games had been played in places like Wrigley Field and Fenway Park, with this year's game was scheduled to be played at the University of Michigan's football stadium and expected to draw almost 114,000 fans. Now, for as long as the NHL has been locked out I had maintained a quiet confidence that the league would be back in time for this game. Much like the NBA season, which might have officially started this week but doesn't really kick into gear until the Christmas Day slate of games, the NHL hangs its hat on the Winter Classic, which gets higher ratings than most of the playoff games. Missing the Winter Classic would be like NASCAR calling off the Daytona 500 - you may still have some races after that, but they just won't feel the same. That is why, when the game was officially cancelled late this week, for the first time I have legitimate feelings of pessimism about the chances there will be any kind of NHL season. One of the most frustrating things about labor negotiations in professional sports is that neither side feels like talking until some artificial deadline is approaching. With the Winter Classic now cancelled there is no big event left to spur the two sides to get back to the table, as evidenced by the fact that the they haven't met in two weeks. Hockey needs to be very careful here. Cancelling this event is already going to cause them to lose a lot of casual fans and it is very possible that missing an entire season is going to cause the diehards to walk away as well. They two sides are fighting about how to divide their profits, but if they don't hurry up and start playing those profits aren't going to be big enough to fight over.

-Every time a celebrity gets caught in a scandal of some kind, I never understand why they don't just come out, admit guilt, say they are sorry and get the whole thing behind them. America is a forgiving society and quick to move on, but we refuse to do that until you first admit what you did. If you need any more proof of this, just look to the case of Mark McGwire. Four years ago McGwire was a baseball pariah who couldn't get a job in the game. But his former manager Tony LaRussa took him on as a hitting coach, he did every interview that was requested, said he was sorry for cheating roughly 1,000 times, people eventually got tired of asking him about it and all was forgiven. Once he started the process the entire thing took about six months. And I'm not just talking about in St. Louis. Making amends in St. Louis would have been the easy part because Mark played there for years and saved baseball with his homeruns while wearing a Cardinals uniform. Baseball fans are always going to be more willing to forgive a guy who once played for them, but especially St. Louis fans because they are widely regarded as the soccer moms of MLB - as long as you wear a Cardinals uniform they will be on your side. But yesterday it was announced that McGwire will be the Los Angeles Dodgers' new hitting coach. To me getting a job with the Dodgers, a team McGwire had no connection to before yesterday, proves that his reputation around baseball is back to where it was before. So if a guy like Barry Bonds, who keeps saying he would like to coach, really wants to get back into the game the formula has been laid out in front of him, but he has to be the one to take the first step.

-As I've mentioned before, while the economy is on its way back, things are still tough out there for the guys who need sponsorships to sustain their careers. It requires people to get creative, which is why I liked the story earlier this week when the Ottawa Senators announced they were partnering with Canadian golfer Brad Fritsch, who qualified for the 2013 PGA tour this past weekend after four years on the Web.com Tour (think golf's version of AAA). As part of the deal Fritsch will do public appearances for the team, have their logo on his golf bag and be decked out in Senators' colors. I think this works out great for both sides. Fritsch is not only Canadian but he grew up with the Senators as his favorite team so this is probably as close as he'll ever get to living out his childhood dream of playing for the team. Additionally, it is looking less and less likely that the Senators are going to have to pay any of their own players this year, so they've got a little extra money to burn. But beyond all that, I think this is a really smart marketing plan. Outside of Tiger, Rory, Phil and a handful of other famous players, the majority of casual golf fans can't tell who is the professional and who is the pro-am partner. Fritsch is not only going to be the only guy sponsored by a pro hockey team, he will immediately expand his fanbase to anyone who is a Senators fan, because fans always flock to people who like the same teams as they do. And this is great for the Senators because if you aren't much of a hockey fan but are rabid about golf at least you'll have heard of the Ottawa Senators, which gives them a leg up in finding new fans. I'd love it if this kind of sponsorship expanded to include more golfers, though I have this sinking feeling that a lot of them would switch loyalties to whichever team played closest to the course they were playing that week. Don't forget, unlike professional hockey players, golfers aren't used to be booed on the road.