There’s just four weeks and two days left in the major league baseball regular season, and big games in the playoff races of both leagues will set the tone for Friday’s daily sports agenda. MLB Network will have split coverage at 7 PM ET. It’s St. Louis-Pittsburgh in the National League, and Baltimore-New York in the American League.
The Kansas City Chiefs endured the worst 2012 season imaginable. The on-field performance was a disaster, as a team that TheSportsNotebook’s NFL analysis felt had dark-horse playoff potential ended up 2-14 and picking first in this past April’s NFL draft. And the season ended in tragedy, when linebacker Jovan Belcher shot his girlfriend and then himself. The Chiefs now look to move forward in 2013.
The San Diego Chargers have bottomed out. The six-year period of decline where they fired Marty Schottenheimer for his failure to get to the Super Bowl have predictably ended with a franchise that can no longer even make the playoffs, and a regime change. Mike McCoy is the new head coach entrusted with clearing out the manure left by former GM A.J. Smith and his puppet coach Norv Turner, and McCoy is going to need time.
It’s very difficult to find anything good to say about the Oakland Raiders. They haven’t made the playoffs since their run to the AFC title back in 2002. They haven’t even had a winning season in that timeframe. The 2012 season was their first under head coach Dennis Allen, and the 4-12 campaign did nothing to convince anyone that better days are ahead.
The Denver Broncos rolled to a 13-3 record and the top seed in the AFC in 2012, but the lasting memory of their season is Baltimore Ravens’ receiver Jacoby Jones getting behind free safety Rahim Moore at the end of regulation in their second-round playoff game for the touchdown that forced overtime, and ultimately the Broncos’ elimination.
The issue for this season’s NFL analysis is whether that game was just a fluke, or if it exposed some deeper flaws in the Denver team.
Real football is back starting tonight. No more preseason games, no more replays from last year on ESPN Classic or the NFL Network. The 2013 college football season kicks off tonight and sets the tone for Thursday’s daily sports agenda.
The showcase games of college football’s opening week are four big non-conference games involving teams from the SEC. But beyond that, there are twelve other games that are at least worth checking in on. TheSportsNotebook’s college football coverage runs down the rest of the Undercard Dozen…
South Carolina hosts North Carolina to get the season kicked off on Thursday, and then Saturday sees Alabama-Virginia Tech in the late afternoon, followed by Georgia-Clemson and LSU-TCU in prime-time. Here’s the rundown on the four games that are the highlight of the season’s opening week…
The AL East has more contenders than any team in baseball, with four teams in hot pursuit of at least a wild-card, and two teams in a neck-and-neck battle for first place. Both sides of that race come together in a big game Wednesday night that highlights the sports fan’s daily sports agenda.
…t it’s easy to under why Las Vegas has structured the betting odds on winning the NFC North in such a way that you can basically take the field against the Packers. Green Bay’s price for winning the division is 5-7. Meanwhile, Chicago is 18-5, Detroit clocks in at 4-1 and Minnesota is a 10-1 shot. If you bet equal amounts on all three teams and one of them takes down the leader, you turn a profit.
Adrian Peterson delivered a season for the ages in 2012, rushing for nearly 2,100 yards, lifting the Minnesota Vikings into the playoffs and winning the MVP award. No one doubts Peterson’s greatness, but repeating a season like that is going to be next to impossible. Therefore, the focus of TheSportsNotebook’s NFL analysis will be whether A.P.’s mates can help the team make it back to the postseason.
The Detroit Lions have become quite familiar with being a disaster area. The fate of their football team has become synonymous with that of their local municipal government—bankrupt. Even so, last year’s 4-12 performance ranks pretty high on the list of disappointments. Detroit entered the 2012 season with great expectations and finished it as a great big flop.
