The entire league will be watching the sunday night showdown between the Carolina Panthers and the New York Giants.  Everybody, except for the Panthers, will be rooting for the Giants.  If the Panthers win, they will have home-field advantage throughout the playoffs.  This could spell a long playoff run for the Panthers.  They have been unbeatable at home this season, literally, a perfect 8-0 at Bank of America Stadium.   This is going to be a great game, with physically dominating teams going at each other.  It should be very exciting.

Both the Redskins and the Bills were handed tough losses on sunday.  The Redskins were ultimatly dominated by the Ravens, and the Bills looked flat against the Dolpins.  Both of these teams look to be out of the playoff race.  In most other divisions, they might still be alive but because of the tough divisions that they play in, their hopes of playoffs are basically over.  Both of these teams looked very promising early in the season, but they just fell off the end of a cliff.  Neither team can compete with the top teams in the league and are now finished.

Did you notice that every since Chris Collinsworth picked the Jets to go to the superbowl on Sunday Night Football, they have dropped two easy games?  Two weeks ago, when he first picked them, the Broncos demolished them, and this week they lost to the 49ers.  If the Jets are going to be playoff contenders, they need to play games one at a time, I think that they started to look ahead, thinking they could easily win these last two games.  Now, they have lost their division lead and are in a dogfight to beat the Patriots and Dolphins to win their division.  If you are a Jets fan, then you can blame lazy play and Chris Collinsworth for your last two losses.

Right now in my mind the Heisman race goes like this:

1st: Tebow; He has lead his team to the National Championship Game, he beat #1 Alabama, he is a clutch player, the Gators are SEC Champs, and he is one of the toughest players in the country.

2nd:Bradford;Big 12 Champs, National Title Game, he has the best numbers of anyone, scores a lot of touchdowns, and he is only a sophomore.

3rd: McCoy;Beat Oklahoma, he leads the #3 team in the nation, he has great numbers, probably going to fiesta bowl.

4th: Harrell;Beat #1 Texas, good numbers, not many mistakes/turnovers, and he leads the #7 team in the nation.

We are not even ten games into the season yet and teams are already being upset.  Yesterday two top 10 teams were taken by unranked teams.  Duke, who lost to Michigan 81-73, never could get a rythm on offense.  The Wolverines defense held Greg Paulus scoreless, and only allowed 12 points to Nolan Smith.  Michigan VS Duke Highlights.

In the other game Notre Dame gets its second loss of the season as they lose to Ohio State 67-62.  Notre Dame, who had already lost to UNC this year, could never get Kyle McArlarney going on offense.  On the flip side, Evan Turner for Ohio State could not be stopped all game long.  He finished with 28 points, some of those in clutch moments in the end of the game.Notre Dame VS Michigan Highlights

There are a couple of things that I want to talk about for the winter sports season so far.

The Chiefs Future

Ever since Tyler Thigpen got the starting QB job in KC, the Chiefs actually look like a football team.  Thigpen reminds me a lot of a young Daunte’ Culpepper.  He can Scramble out of the pocket to extend plays and he can run the ball for a first down.  If the Chiefs can get him a decent WR and a RB that does not assault his coach, the Chiefs could be a respectable football team.  I know the defense needs a lot of work but hey, you have to start somewhere.  I’m not saying the Chiefs will be good in a year or even a couple of years, all that I am saying is that with a couple of good draft picks, they could be a okay team.

Plaxico Burress

I have to blog on this topic.  First of all, everyone knows the situation with Burress, owning a gun illegally, shooting himself, and now facing prison time.  To me, I don’t think that you should have a gun if your not even smart enough to #1 get a legal permit and #2 not shoot yourself.  If you don’t know how to use a gun responsibly, then you should not have one.  You don’t just flash the gun around either.  Most people say that he had the gun because of a recent string of NFL players being robbed at gunpoint.  This is perfectly acceptable and I have no problem with someone owning a gun to protect themselves.  The problem I have is when people don’t use the gun responsibly.  As a professional athlete, Burress is an icon and role model.  If he goes around shooting himself, then that gives him a very, very bad name.  Secondly, he did not have a current permit for the gun.  Once again, he was not very responsible with the gun.  To me, this ends his football career, not the injury, but the legal problems he will face.  If he is convicted of illegal possession of a weapon it is a minimum of 3 1/2 years in jail.

The Lions Will go 0-16

Most of the time when a team is threatening to go 0-16 the only thing that saves them is a team resting starters late in the year.  This is not the case for the 2008 Lions.  In all of their remaining games, they face teams fighting for a playoff spot.  They are at home against Minnesota, at Indianapolis, at home against New Orleans, and to Green Bay.  Maybe not all of these teams are fighting for the playoffs(New Orleans), but none of them are going to rest their starters.  If I had to pick a game that the Lions could win it would bethe last game in Green Bay.  By then, the Packers may be out of a division title spot, so they will not be fighting very hard to win.  On the other side the Lions have something to fight for, pride.  Nobody wants to be remembered as the first 0-16 team.  Throughout all this, I still think the Packers will win this game.  The fans at lambeau will not let their team lose a winless team.

NFL MVP

This year the field for NFL MVP is very crowded.  I am trying to decide whether it should be Clinton Portis, or Kurt Warner, that’s right I said Kurt Warner.  Right now I am leaning towards Clinton Portis.  His team plays in a much tougher division and he has just flat out played better.  One of the reasons that I think a lot of people think it should be Warner is because of his age.  If he was a average joe 29 year old that had been playing for only 5 years, I don’t think he would be in the MVP hunt.  The fact that he is as old as he is, done what he has in St. Louis and then come to Arizona and done the same thing gives him a certain quality that no other player has.  Also, if the Cardinals did not play 8 games during the season against division opponents, I don’t think he would have the numbers that he does.  Last week you saw what a NFC East opponent did to him, and Portis has had to play against that all season.  All in all, Clinton Portis should be MVP.

NBA 2010?

I think that all the free agent talk of 2010 is stupid.  How can you speculate what will happen in 2 years?  That is like trying to predict next years super bowl.  A lot of things will change between now and then and the priorities of teams may have changed.  Even if the free agent class of 2010 is almost its own all-star team, you still don’t speculate about it for 2 years.  Also, people act like its a given that these players will leave the team that they are at.  Do you really think that these franchises are going to give up there best players without a fight.  The biggest name in the free agent class is Lebron James.  I don’t know what will happen in 2010, but I am not so sure he will leave Cleveland.  It is his hometown, it was a dream scenario when the Cavs drafted him, and his team is one of the best in the league right now.  With all that said, just pay attention to this years season and off-season, not the 2010 season.

Oklahoma-Texas

I cannot believe that Oklahoma beat out Texas to go to the Big 12 Title Game.  Everyone was saying that Oklahoma deserved it because of the way they beat Texas Tech.  I have one point about this and no one can argue it.  The Texas-Oklahoma game has already been played and as far as I know, Texas won.  There should be no controversy about who should be in this title game.  If you want to talk about which team is better, Texas or Oklahoma, its simple, that game has been played already and Texas won on a neutral field 45-35.

BCS Title Game

Now that Florida beat Alabama and Oklahoma beat Missouri, it is pretty much settled who will be in the national title game.  This is almost a dream scenario for the BCS.  It is pretty clear cut who will be in the national title game.Every Texas fan will complain, but what has happened has happened and that is the end of it.  I think that the new #1 team will be Oklahoma with Florida at a close #2 spot.  The big strength that the Sooners have is that they jump on teams early. This will not be the case against a very good Florida team. One other note is that whichever QB leads their team to victory should be the Heisman trophy winner.  This will not be the case against a very good Florida team.  It should be a great national title game and a great end to the college football season.