Wild Card Playoffs Recap

Quick summary of my thoughts about this past weekends games and the upcoming divisional playoffs:

Seahawks over Redskins

Tough loss for any Canes fans rooting for the Skins. I was pulling for Washington, who displayed a tremendous amount of heart following the tragic murder of their teammate Sean Taylor. However, this had to be expected. Todd Collins was a journeyman for a reason, the Skins feasted on relatively weak competition towards the end of the postseason.

Jaguars over Steelers

Heartbreaking loss for the towel-wielding fans up in Pittsburgh. The Steelers looked like the better team when it mattered, however they could not recover from their early struggles. The only real entertaining matchup of the weekend.

Giants over Bucs

I called this one from the start. Went 4-0 against the spread actually. Well, not really, I picked winners but it feels better to be 4-0 than 3-1. Eli Manning is awful, but actually came through against the overrated Bucs. There was no doubt in my mind this game was going in favor of New York.

Chargers over Titans

The gimme pick of the week. This game was a snoozefest. The Chargers are lucky they won't share Jacksonville's fate as the sacrificial lamb next week.

Thoughts on next week's games....

San Diego vs Indy

Though the Chargers match up relatively well with Indianapolis, don't expect Peyton Manning to throw another 6 interceptions. Phillip Rivers is not a great quarterback, and I don't trust the Chargers to come through on the road in the playoffs.

Jax vs New England

For some reason, everyone is saying Jacksonville can beat the Patriots. Sure they have the mold, power running team that doesn't make many mistakes, solid defense. However, they haven't played the Patriots. Expect New England to turn it up a notch and dismantle Jacksonville.

Dallas vs NYG

The G-Men actually have a decent shot in this one. Dallas has struggled the final month of the season. Romo has looked lost, the running game hasn't been that effective, and TO is a questionable decision to play. Who knows, maybe Eli will pull off a miracle.

Seattle vs Green Bay

Green Bay will get the ball. And they're gonna score. Sorry Matt Hasselbeck. The Packers are a far more formidable opponent than the Skins.

Shaq Leaves Team for Medical Attention

Might this be the beginning of the end? Or is it just a routine medical examination? Shaquille O'Neal did not travel with the team today and is in Los Angeles checking up on his injured hip with a hip specialist. The injury has kept him out of the last five games.

Pat Riley and the Heat insist it's not a big deal and that Shaq should be back in 7-10 days with an optimistic timetable. However, if it was just some average hip pointer or other hip-related injury, then why is Shaq flying across the country for specialized treatment?

It's no secret that O'Neal's game has deteriorated substantially over the past 2 seasons. His effectiveness is extremely limited by his worn down body. At his age and his size, it should be expected that his legs, knees and hips begin to show the effects of wear and tear. His 320+ pound frame puts a huge load of pressure on his lower body, so an average hip injury might easily become a serious issue.

Now, this is all speculation. For all I know, he'll be back to his average self in the near future. However, don't discount the potential problems this might present in the future. I know this is absolutely jumping the gun, but if Shaq were to retire for some reason due to this injury, the Heat could apply for a waiver and receive the cap exemption for his salary next season. Normally, retired players don't need to be paid but still count against the cap until their contract expires.

Dolphins Revelations

A friend tipped me off to this article by Jay Glazer at FOX Sports. I had no idea it had gotten that bad in Davie. Being 1-15 and disrespecting team leader Jason Taylor meant that Cameron had little support in the locker room. I knew that halfway through the year as it appeared that he had lost several of his players, especially the veterans.

Furthermore, there was the leak of that team incident on the plane that resulted in Keith Traylor being dismissed from the Dolphins. It made sense that players would take offense to the action by the coach. However, I had no idea the situation got so heated.

Defensive stars and team leaders Zach Thomas, Jason Taylor, and Joey Porter lined up after the incident and systematically RIPPED Cam Cameron apart. Porter even went as far as to call him a spineless coward. Apparently, Cameron only stood up to stop the altercation at the very end when things had already started to break down. He displayed no leadership skills or authority whatsoever. In response to the attacks, Cameron did nothing and simply sat back down.

It now appears that Cameron was way in over his head as the head coach of a professional football team. He mismanaged his team on and off the field. After Joey Porter asked for extra time in Pittsburgh after the MNF game, his request was denied. He chose to stay anyhow. Rather than suspend him, Cameron slapped him on the wrist with a fine and further lost his players.

His decision to bench John Beck reeked of desperation to me and that was not lost on his players. If anyone had any support for Cameron after Beck's benching and the plane incident, they were alone. Even had Parcells not come in, Cameron would have likely been fired because not a single player on this team respected him.

The article above also mentions an incident where Zach Thomas had some words with former GM Randy Mueller for remarks made questioning Zach's heart. It looks like this team was doomed from the start and now it comes to no surprise that it failed so miserably on the field. I wouldn't be surprised if that Zach video I posted earlier this week is an accurate reflection of what's to come.

It's amazing the team was so close in so many games when looking back. Not only was the team sorely outmatched in almost every game they played, but the front office and the locker room were at each other's throats the entire season.

Wade Struggles, Heat Lose Again

The losses continue to pile up as the Miami Heat failed to close down the stretch vs the Memphis Grizzlies today. After being tied with under 2 minutes left, the Grizzlies scored and Dwyane Wade missed an ensuing pair of free throws to tie and Miami ended up losing 101-94.

These recaps are becoming redundant in their content. The Heat had a chance to win and blew it. At this point, I'll just keep harping on my previous points: every loss is a good thing. Even if by some miracle this team makes a deadline trade and turns things around, they aren't beating Boston, Detroit, and San Antonio in 7 game series. It's time to accept that the window has closed for a title. Now it's time to rebuild around Wade.

Ricky Davis did score a season high 24, and I'm sure the futility of this season has made him happy because he can chuck up shots without a second thought. Wade added 18 points and 9 assists in 29 minutes off the bench, but struggled from the field and turned the ball over 4 times.

Chris Quinn had a nice game, though he did have an uncharacteristic pair of turnovers. Regardless, he drained 5 3's and scored 17, proving that Jason Williams is more than expendable. We will never win another title with either as our starting point guard, but Quinn is a more than capable backup.

As usual the team got outrebounded, this time versus what should be an inferior opponent. In fact, the game shouldn't have been so close. The Heat were allowed to stick around thanks to a Memphis brickfest from the 3-point line.

Looking at this roster, I would have told you that 4 guys were untouchable. Wade, Cook, Wright and Haslem. At the rate this team is going, we will be looking at either Michael Beasley or Derrick Rose next season. Therefore, Haslem might become expendable, especially with his recent attitude problems getting him in trouble with the refs. And Wright is too inconsistent to keep around if someone offers something impressive for him.

The only two I'd keep would be Wade and Cook. Everyone else is for sale. Trade for Eddy Curry. Trade for Pietrus. Get Maggette in here. Artest. Bibby. Somebody. Time is running out on the expiring contracts and Haslem's value might start to dip if he hits a rough patch. Get something substantial for what you've got. Consider a Shaq buyout if you can. Save yourself as much money as possible, because what this team has won't cut it.

Sparano Interviews, Offered job?

We all knew Tony Sparano was being interviewed today and that he is likely the frontrunner for the head coaching position for the Miami Dolphins. However, The New Haven Register reported that not only was Sparano offered the job at the conclusion of the interview, but has accepted it and plans to take over after the Cowboys' season is over.

The Herald reports that this latest development is false, and that the Dolphins remain interested in interviewing several other candidates later this week. While this may be true, it's pretty obvious that the other interviews are for show or simply to uphold the Rooney Rule. Sparano is in the lead and it would be a shocker if he didn't become the next Dolphins head coach.

If he does, that completes the Dallas triumvirate. Parcells, Ireland, and Sparano will attempt to recapture the magic they had in Big D and revive the Miami Dolphins franchise. The sooner, the better, I think. Coaching staffs are not my priority. I want good players. The sooner the front office can worry about signing more effective players, then the sooner this team can finally produce at a respectable level.

Gators Using Wilfork as Role Model

Just because I'm spiteful and because I'm still somewhat embarrassed by Vince Wilfork's several acts of misconduct, I figured I might bring up a video clip of a Florida Gator player repeating a similar act early this week in the Citrus Bowl.



Thanks a million to Wizard of Odds, where I picked up on this video clip.

Recap of Today's Recruiting Events

Technically, I'm supposed to be classy about recruits and where they go. These are young kids making big decisions, so you can't fault them for where they choose to play ball. So wishing them ill is not a mature thing to do. However, certain situations call for criticism of these "kids". I was 18 just a few years ago, and I never would have pulled some of the stunts some of these guys are doing.

I would have been fine with Matt Patchan going to LSU. Everyone has a right to go to a school other than the U. And to be fair, Matt handled his recruitment very well. He refused to string anyone along ala Patrick Johnson. He announced his decision to go to UF and that's fair enough. However, after ripping this team for their disappointing performance versus Virginia, you would think he would have it in him to back it up.

Instead, the Cane legacy chose to play for an established contender in the Gators rather than make his own mark here in Coral Gables. If you are going to call out a team for lack of desire, then do something about it. It was a poor move on his part to say those things and then go north to Gainesville. So I won't be classy about it and wish him luck. I'm sure he'll be fine regardless, but I don't care for our rivals to the north and frankly I hope he and his teammates fail miserably on the field.

Patrick is another situation to get up in arms about. He played us, plain and simple. Today he chose LSU as his final destination, though I wouldn't rule out a last minute bait and switch with him. He lied to everyone about a lot of things, for sport. If you caught the US Army Game today, the announcers told us that Patrick decommitted because coaches stopped talking to him. Don't believe that, because that is only his side of the story.

I wouldn't go out and say that I want him to do poorly. But he is one guy I will root against in college and I eagerly await a potential bowl game where we can stick it to him. What goes around comes around.

Aside from those two big names, there isn't much else. TJ Bryant was supposed to play in the game, but was hurt and doesn't plan to sign until NSD I think. Brandon Harris also plans to sign in February, and played in the Under Armour game.

Several Canes played in these all-star games, including Marcus Forston, Sean Spence, and Aldarius Johnson. The one who impressed me the most was Arthur Brown, who looks like an absolute beast.

Finally, some good news to cap things off. I have a hunch that Corey Liuget, the massive 4 star DE from South Florida, will switch his commitment over to Miami at some point. He is currently slated to sign with Ron Zook at Illinois because he is being pressured by family to go out of state.

However, he has stated his desire to stay at home, and has shown excitement about potentially playing with all the defensive studs we are bringing in. He has canceled his visits to Ohio State and supposedly has narrowed his final decision to 3 schools.

Matt Patchan Commits to...

the Florida Gators. More updates on recruiting will be posted shortly, but for now, Matt Patchan announced that he has committed to UF. Tough loss for the Canes here. I'm not sure how a Cane legacy who had some strong opinions about this year's Miami team could go and choose a hated rival. Apparently his dad had more say in the decision than we all thought. Oh well.

Shorthanded Heat Lose Heartbreaker

I really wanted this one. Badly. Lately I've been rooting for the young guys to play well and secretly hoping to win the games, but outwardly I've been hoping we just lose games by 20 to get better draft positioning without the heartbreak of a close loss. But tonight, man I wanted the Heat to win.

I HATE the Dallas Mavericks. I hate their jackass owner. I hate their whiny players who should blame themselves for choking more than they blame outside influences. And I hate their smug fans. Theres nothing to like about that franchise since they refuse to give ours credit for a title. So when the Heat had the lead for most of the game, in Dallas, without Wade or Shaq or Wright or Williams, I was rooting HARD for a victory.

However, the 2nd half featured way too many turnovers and bad shots, but primarily just an outgunned Miami Heat team. I have to give the guys an A+ for effort. Everyone gave it their all tonight and played a great game against a top team in the NBA. If only they would put out that kind of effort when the starters are actually healthy.

That being said, there were two big negatives I took from this game. First, Luke Jackson does not belong on an NBA roster. I don't know what they saw in him, and I certainly don't know why he was chosen in the lottery. The guy is flat out awful. He hogs the ball and launches off-balance bricks, has no ball control, and killed our chances of a victory with a bad inbounds pass in the final seconds.

The other negative is the blatant non-call against Ricky Davis with under 10 seconds to go. Down 1, Davis drove to the basket and airballed a layup after getting smacked in the head by a Maverick. No call, game effectively over. Thanks, refs. I'd like to see any of those grumbling Mavs fans and so-called experts tell me the Heat get preferential treatment after watching that blown call. Even with all the factors going against us, Miami still won that game to me. Instead, the final result was 94-89 in favor of the Mavericks, and another notch in the Loss column for the Heat.

Couple of Former Canes in the News

Former Miami DT Vince Wilfork was fined $15,000 today by the NFL for sticking his finger in Brandon Jacobs' facemask during last Saturday's game. This is the 3rd time this season Vince has been fined by the league. I really don't know what is up with all this unsportsmanlike behavior. I certainly don't recall him doing all these things down in Miami.

Maybe it's all that Patriot cockiness that is getting to him. You might remember Wes Welker cussing out a DB earlier this season, telling him "You #$*!@ SUCK!" after catching a game-clinching pass on 3rd down. That's not the Wes I watched in 3 years down in Miami. Something about Bill Belichick's lax attitude towards sportsmanship seems to be rubbing off on usually respected athletes.

The other former Cane in the news thankfully isn't embarrassing us. Rob Chudzinski is being interviewed by the Ravens for the head-coaching job. This is coming after Rob was the OC for a Cleveland offense that was explosive this season.

Chud played TE for the U back in the late 80s, winning a pair of national championships. However, he's best known for running the Miami offense from 2001-2003 when we had a great run, as well as coaching NFL tight ends Bubba Franks, Jeremy Shockey, and K2 back when they were in Coral Gables. Best of luck to Rob.

USF joins FSU in Academic Scandals?

Read a nice little story linked by Deadspin today. Good to see USF is trying to keep up with the big dogs on and off the field. Then again, never trust the words of an ex-wife.

Bowl Season Recap

Technically there are still a couple of games left before the National Championship on Monday. However, the important games have come and gone so I'll get into what happened this bowl season.

For some reason, Florida teams laid a huge egg in their bowl games. I picked all of them to win, except for FSU, and in the end only FAU pulled out a victory. UCF couldn't move the ball, USF proved they were way out of their league, and UF has no defense this season. FSU gave a nice effort despite missing half their team.

It's an embarrassing showing for Florida teams, but hey at least they made bowl games. Though to be fair to the Canes, they spent the extra month on recruiting, so hopefully that will pay dividends in the future.

Aside from that, the bowl season was pretty lame for the most part. With the notable exception of the Gator Bowl, Peach Bowl (I refuse to call the bowls by their new names), and the Citrus Bowl, every other matchup has been a snoozer. Even worse, this particularly is true of the BCS bowl games. Though the purpose of these games is to maximize ticket revenues, it would be nice if the committee could put together some entertaining games for television viewers.

We saw 3 BCS blowouts and a snoozefest in last night's Orange Bowl Classic. Illinois and Hawaii had no business being in BCS games. Missouri got left out for arbitrary reasons. Heck I would have even preferred to see UF in the Rose Bowl. As much as I hate them, a USC-UF bowl game would have been an interesting matchup.

All we have left is a potential 2-loss national champion to be crowned on Monday. If LSU doesn't win, the Luckeyes will back their way into another title, though I suppose they would have actually earned this one as opposed to a certain other one we shall not speak of. It's a disappointing and anti-climactic end to possibly the most exciting regular season in college football history.

Cameron Fired

I left this post for last because it is clearly the most important news of the day. After much speculation, Bill Parcells fired first-year head coach Cam Cameron today. This despite the support of mutual friend Bobby Knight.

Cameron really wasn't a good coach. I don't like to throw people under the bus until they get enough time to prove themselves though. Take a look at Randy Shannon. That team went 5-7 and was even worse than under Coker, but he deserves a few years with his own guys and his own system before we pass judgment.

Cam had to deal with mostly players from the Saban and Wannstedt eras. In fairness to his detractors, the guys he did bring in didn't do much. Ted Ginn's family failed us all. He has to be held accountable for those and other mistakes.

However, other coaches have started off just as bad and ended up doing just fine. The important thing in this case I think is not that Cameron's performance wasn't up to the standards the new front office wanted, but rather the unfamiliarity they had with the current head coach. Parcells wants his GM, his coach, his players. Cameron simply didn't fit into the equation. Under those circumstances, I'm fine with the dismissal. Good luck to Cam elsewhere.

As far as replacements go, Tony Sparano has been the talk of the town. It looks like he is the frontrunner. He is a Parcells guy, hard nosed and hard working. He demands respect. That sounds fine to me. I don't really place emphasis on coaching as much as I do on player personnel. Get me some players and I'll be happy.

Aside from Sparano, the Dolphins have already contacted recently fired Baltimore DC Rex Ryan, as well as Vikings DC Leslie Frazier. Several other candidates have been mentioned, but for the time being, nobody knows anything for sure. I don't think that Parcells will take much longer to find his man though. He has only limited access to Sparano during the playoffs, so I'm sure he will try to sway him to Miami quickly.

Hopefully this starts the true rebuilding process. Remember though, we were all convinced that we were on this track 3 years ago, and last year as well. Both times our big splashes ended up being duds as coaches. It's a tough road, especially when basically the entire staff got fired. I would have liked to see Hudson Houck stick around, but honestly he wasn't able to work his magic to the fullest down here.

Harvey Enters Draft; Meyer is a Scumbag?

UF's best defensive player entered the draft as today. Derrick Harvey is a stellar defensive end who is vying with Calais Campbell to be the 2nd DE drafted after Virginia's Chris Long.

It's a relatively tough hit for the Gators, who will miss Harvey's talent on the defensive line. Against Michigan, he was a terror with 8 tackles and 2 sacks. His exit is pretty good news for Jason Fox and Reggie Youngblood next season, who now won't have to deal with blocking the athletic big man.

However, a string of top 5 recruiting classes has given the Gators depth at almost every position, so I don't think they'll suffer too much from Harvey's exit. As for Urban Meyer, we might never know if he even cares. A few days ago I read a paraphrasing of Meyer's attitude towards departing seniors who didn't make an impact. Recently there has been more made of this, and since I can't resist a chance to stir the pot whenever it comes to Urban Crier, here's the text taken from Noles boards regarding his comments on a radio show:

Well, for those guys who just put in their time and didn't make any real contributions, it's time for you to go. It won't be hard to say goodbye to some of those guys who just went through the motions. Now for those kids who actually bought into the program, and who made some sacrifices and contributions -- you know, like Bubba Caldwell....he's a graduate of UF and had a great career -- you'll really miss those guys. But just because you're a senior doesn't mean you have any value.

It helps that several Gator fans confirmed the comments to some effect, though the paraphrasing is likely exaggeration. However, I wonder why anyone would still want to play for Urban after hearing stuff like this and the other shady stuff like what you can find in Meat Market. Hopefully someone will let Matt Patchan's dad know about the interview. Go to AllCanes for a nice read regarding these comments.

Ricky Gets Extension

In what comes to a surprise to yours truly, the Dolphins today extended Ricky Williams' contract through next season. In my Evaluation of RBs I wrote how Ricky's ineffectiveness, injury history, age, and character issues probably meant he was done with the Dolphins and possibly the NFL.

Apparently, the new front office felt otherwise. Ricky's contract is worth just under 750k next season, so he serves as a cheap backup to Ronnie Brown. I doubt at this point that there are any considerable offers for his services from other teams. Might as well I guess.

What worries me is that this probably spells the end of Jesse Chatman's run in Miami. He could potentially price himself out of a job here and I doubt the Dolphins plan on keeping 4 running backs on the roster. The potential fallout of this happening is that if Ronnie is not ready by training camp or God forbid reinjures himself, we are taking a huge risk with Ricky being the primary backup. Oh well. We'll see how things go.