Have you ever seen a worst weekend of playoff football? The last game of the set of four featuring the Green bay Packers beating the Washington Redskins was a decent game, but the other 3 stunk. The Kansas City Chiefs/Houston Texans game was over after the opening kickoff; we just didn’t know that yet. Even though the Chiefs went in leading at halftime 13-0; it seemed like Houston had no chance to get back into the game. There are obvious reasons the Pittsburgh Steelers vs. the Cincinnati Bengals game was terrible. Besides the 2 penalties decided the game there was the fact that these 2 teams combined to score just 34 points. I thought for sure that one of these teams would score 34 points; in no way did I think it would take both of them to get to that number. The Seattle Seahawks vs. the Minnesota Vikings game was 3-0 at halftime with Minnesota in the lead. They saved all the excitement for the last field goal attempt by the Vikings when Blair Walsh missed a 26-yarder to allow Seattle to hang on to a 10-9 victory. It was just bad football from start to finish on wild card weekend; so here’s hoping that the divisional round this weekend has some better games. Kansas City gets to start the weekend off again, but this time they are on the road to play the New England Patriots. It’s schedule to be a 3:35 p.m. kickoff on Saturday. Game 2 has the Green Bay Packers against the Arizona Cardinals with a kickoff time scheduled at 7:15 p.m. It’s the first meeting this season for the Chiefs and the Patriots, but the Packers and the Cardinals met in Week 16 when Arizona dominated the game and handed Green Bay a 38-8 loss. The Sunday games are both rematches. The first game has the Seattle Seahawks at the Caroline Panthers. In Week 6 the Panthers went into Seattle and won the game 27-23. This game is scheduled to be the Noon kickoff on Sunday. The second game is a scheduled 3:40 p.m. kickoff has the Pittsburgh Steelers vs. the Denver Broncos. These two teams played in Week 15 in Pittsburgh and the Steelers came away with a 34-27 victory. After last week I’m just not sure if any of these will be good match ups or if they’ll turn ingot good games. Of course like everyone else I’ll be sitting in front of the television watching even if it’s bad football; again!
Who had Gerardo Parra coming off the free agent market before Justin Upton or Yoenis Cespedes? Yesterday Parra got a 3-year $27.5 million dollar deal with from the Colorado Rockies. It was a bit of a surprise that the Rockies made this signing since their outfield looked set. Colorado has Carlos Gonzalez in right field, Charlie Blackmon in center field and Corey Dickerson in left field. Now quite a few teams use a 4 man outfield, but right after this signing the rumors started that one of the Colorado outfielders would be traded. There have been some rumors about the St. Louis Cardinals and Gonzalez, but nothing solid. It seemed that yesterday Blackmon’s name came up more and more with the Detroit Tigers seeming to be the team interested. Of course these are all just rumors right now. I thinking ti also could lead to Gonzalez playing some 1st base to help him stay in the line up. Gonzalez stayed healthy last season playing in 153 games and hit 40 homers. If Blackmon or Gonzalez is dealt you’d have to think that the Rockies would like to get some quality young pitching in return. So with Parra off the board how much longer will it be before Upton and Cespedes sign deals?
In what I think you could say is another surprise signing it was the Miami Marlins who stepped up and signing left-hander Wei-Yin Chen to a 5-year $80 million dollar deal. Chen’s deal does have an opt out after the second season. Last season Chen went 11-8 with a 3.34 ERA over 31 starts. Chen did go 16-6 in 2014. One of Chen’s most impressive stats is the fact that over 117 career starts he has walked just 172 hitters; 4 of which where intentional. The Marlins needed someone to fill the #2 spot in the rotation behind Jose Fernandez and you have to wonder with the Chen signing if will hear anymore about a possible Fernandez trade. There was a report out yesterday that the Marlins are no longer interested in trading center fielder Marcell Ozuna. The Marlins also added veteran infielder Chris Johnson yesterday. Johnson was let go by the Cleveland Indians after the 2015 season. Johnson should add some left handed as a back up at 3rd and 1st base. Terms of Johnson’s deal were not disclosed as the Indians are on the hook for $7.5 million this season and $9 million next season. Who knows if these moves will be enough for Miami to contend on the N.L. East next season, but remember no one had the New York Met winning that division last season.
The NBA is coming up on it’s halfway point and the Chicago Bulls find themselves at 22-15 in 4th place overall in the Eastern Conference. This is pretty much right where the Bulls found themselves last season under coach Tom Thibodeau. Now the Bulls front office team of john Paxton and Gar Foreman couldn’t wait to get rid of Thibodeau after last season. They even managed to set things up so Thibodeau was pretty much closed out of any other head coaching position for the 2015-16 season. With Thibodeau gone Paxton and Foreman went out and got their guy Fred Hoiberg. Now is Hoiberg the guy to lead this team t an NBA championship? He’s suppose to be an offensive coach, but the Bulls are only 11th in scoring averaging 102.1 points per game. The Bulls used to be a top defensive team under Thibodeau, but now they give up 100.8 points per game. That ranks right in the middle or 15th overall for the average of points given up. So under Hoiberg the Bulls aren’t a top offensive team and they’re no linger a top defensive team. After a 6 game winning streak the Bulls have now looked bad in 3 straight losses. Chicago lost 120-105 to the Atlanta Hawks; a team that is ahead of them in the standings. Then they turned around and played very poorly in a 114-100 loss to the Washington Wizards. To add to it last night the Milwaukee Bucks beat the Bulls 106-101. Now the Wizards are 17-19 and the Bucks are 16-24 with neither team being in the Top 8 of the Eastern Conference. The Bulls take the court tomorrow (Thursday) against the 4-36 Philadelphia 76ers. With the way te Bulls have played these last 3 games and with the game being in Philadelphia; could the Bulls become the 76ers 5th victory of the season?
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