1/31/15
All the talk is just about over and tomorrow (Sunday) the New England Patriots and the Seattle Seahawks will meet in the Super Bowl. It looks like neither team will lose any players to injury for the start of the game, but there are some key players listed on the teams injury reports. For New England the biggest injury listed is to center Brian Stork who’s been dealing with a knee injury and has been limited in practice. The Seahawks have three of their four starting defensive backs on the injury report. Safety Earl Thomas is playing with a shoulder injury. Everyone saw Richard Sherman play the end of the NFC championship game with one arm. Sherman injured his elbow against the Green Bay Packers, but the bigger question with Sherman is what will he do if his girlfriend goes into labor before the game. The breaking injury news that came out yesterday was on Seattle safety Kam Chancellor. It’s being reported that the last play of practice yesterday (Friday) Chancellor injured his knee and left the field with a wrapped left knee. Will the Patriots and quarterback Tom Brady be able to take advantage of a banged up Seattle secondary which is considered the best in the league? Finally it won’t be long until we find out on the field instead of just talking about it.
Besides just my predictions on the game I went out and had everyone from Sports Time Radio send me their final score and who they think will win the MVP award. Here’s what we’ve picked for the Super Bowl.
Schaumburg Stu has it New England 30 Seattle 17 with Tom Brady winning the MVP.
Dan the Man has it New England 42 Seattle 34 with Brady as his MVP as well.
Mr. Fantasy has it New England 27 Seattle 17 and he went with Brady as his MVP also.
I have Seattle 27 New England 21 with Kam Chancellor as the MVP.
Greg from our fantasy challenge has it New England 31 Seattle 20 and get also likes Brady as MVP.
I also asked Phil Watson from http://www.DairylandExpress.com for a prediction and he went with Seattle 24 New England 23 with Marshawn Lynch as his MVP.
If you’d like to hear who Dylan Smith from Chowder and Champions James Silberman from Emerald City Swagger and Tony Fischer from Detroit Jock City picked to win and who they liked as MVP. Go into Blog Talk Radio and listen to the Friday edition of Sports Time Radio. Mr. Fantasy and I had them all make picks at the end of their interviews last night.
The Chicago Bulls are 30-19 and a 1 1/2 of the Cleveland Cavaliers for 1st place in the Central division of the Eastern conference, but with the Bulls up and down play this season there are people wondering what’s wrong with this team. As with any team that has reported issues the first person everyone looks at is the head coach. In the Bulls case that’s Tom Thibodeau that the spotlight is on right now. there are reports out of Chicago that the relationship between Thibodeau and the Bulls front office; General Manager Gar Foreman and team President John Paxson is “beyond repair”. It seems to be Thibodeau’s intense style of coaching that is causing the issues between him and the front office. This may actually go back to November of 2013 when a report surfaced that the Bulls team executives where telling Thibodeau how to dispense minutes to the players. With Thibodeau’s coaching style the Bulls top players log major minutes, but this season the starting unit of Derrick Rose, Jimmy Butler, Mike Dunleavy, Pau Gasol and Joakim Noah have played together in 15 of Chicago’s 49 games this season. This of course doesn’t count the last two seasons that Rose lost to injuries. ESPN analyst Jeff Van Gundy, for whom Thibodeau was an assistant when Van Gundy was head coach of the Knicks and Rockets, blasted Chicago’s front office (and the journalists that cover the Bulls) during last Friday’s Chicago Bulls-Dallas Mavericks game. The Bulls are 4-6 in their last 10 games and dropped their 2nd game in a row last night 99-93 to the Phoenix Suns. The Suns loss follows a tough double overtime loss to the Los Angeles Lakers 123-118 on Thursday. These two losses come after a big victory in Golden State against the Warriors 113-111. This is the kind of up and down play that has people questioning if Thibodeau had lost the Bulls locker room and if his style was too much for a long-term coach. Thibodeau has two years remaining on his contract and you’d hope before Foreman and Paxson would make a coaching change they’s ask themselves if they could find someone better. To make a change for changes sake would be stupid on the front offices part, but if the relationship between the head coach and the front office is that bad there may be a change coning. The Bulls have six more games before the NBA All-Star break and with all of these reports it looks like the break will be much appreciated.
With the big signing of Max Scherzer the Washington nationals look to have the best starting rotation in the MLB but after they dealt Tyler Clippard to the Oakland A’s I had some questions about their bullpen. The Nationals made a move to address the bullpen by signing free-agent reliever Casey Janssen, to a one year with mutual option, $5 million guaranteed including option buyout. Janssen appeared in 50 games for the Toronto Blue Jays in 2014 saving 25 games. His ERA was 3.94 which was up from 2013 when it was 2.56 and from 2012 when it was 2.54. While the Nationals aren’t looking for Janssen to close; they have Drew Storen set to take that role, but if needed Janssen could fill in as closer if needed. The bullpen will get a boost from Tanner Roark who should move into the bullpen after the Scherzer signing. Will Janssen, Roark, Craig Stammen, Jerry Blevins and Matt Thornton be the bullpen combination that leads the Nationals to the season they’re predicted to have in 2015.
MLB Network built a show around the top prospects in baseball; here are the top 5 prospects. Byron Buxton outfielder Minnesota Twins, Kris Bryant 3rd baseman Chicago Cubs, Carlos Correa shortstop Houston Astros, Francisco Lindor shortstop Cleveland Indians and Addison Russell shortstop Chicago Cubs. Will we see any or all of these player in the major leagues this season who knows. This is the second year in a row that Buxton has been the #1 prospect in MLB so you have to wonder how much longer it will be before the Twins need to bring him up and take a look at him. If you’ve listened to the podcast at ll you know how I feel about Bryant. He should’ve been with the Cubs last season and there;s no reason he shouldn’t be on the major league team at the start of the 2015 season, but the Cubs are trying to hold on to him as long as they can and I’m betting he starts the season in the minor leagues. It’s a huge joke on the Cubs part, but they have control of Bryant and can do that. Most of the reports I’ve read have said that Correa is a season or so away from being the Astros everyday shortstop; so I’d be surprised to see him in the majors this season. Lindor is the next Indians shortstop, but they want to make sure that he’ll play that position everyday when he’s brought up to the majors. Russell is another player who is probably a year away from the big leagues, but if he’s going to be there with the Cubs he might have to switch positions. Russell played some 2nd base in the Arizona Fall League for a short period of time and barring a trade of Starling Castro 2nd base may be Russell’s position at the big league level.
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So how was your week?
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