We’ve reached the Labor Day checkpoint of the major league baseball season with two of the six division races all but over, a third that we can realistically call over, and a fourth that’s gotten some surprising space in it over the past week.
Labor Day marks the unofficial end of summer, signals the beginning of baseball’s stretch drive and concludes college football’s first weekend. Those elements come together to create an attractive daily sports TV package on this holiday Monday.
When the Washington Redskins closed the 2012 season seven straight wins and won the NFC East, it completed the division’s superfecta—all four teams had won it in four successive years. The streak started with the Dallas Cowboys in 2009, then the Philadelphia Eagles in 2010. The New York Giants won the division en route to their Super Bowl title in 2011 and then Washington last year.
Chip Kelly’s arrival in the NFL is probably the most anticipated college-to-pro coaching jump we’ve seen since Steve Spurrier tried the same thing 11 years ago. The Philadelphia Eagles are hoping their grand experiment with an innovative offensive mind from college works better than Spurrier did for the Redskins (two bad years).
The Dallas Cowboys opened the 2012 NFL season with a notable performance on national television and closed it with another one. Each game—the opener with the Giants and the finale with the Redskins, each in prime-time—showed the wide pendulum that this team’s fortunes can swing.
The collapse of the New York Giants down the stretch was perhaps the most surprising element of the NFL regular season in 2012. The Giants looked to be coasting home in the NFC East, before they fell apart, watched the Washington Redskins and Dallas Cowboys play for the division title, and the Giants ended up out of the postseason altogether. Was it a temporary swoon or a sign of things to come?
The Washington Redskins returned to prominence in the 2012 NFL season, with the electrifying arrival of rookie quarterback Robert Griffin III. For those of us long-suffering ‘Skins fans, RG3 was the oasis in the desert, lifting a moribund franchise to a 10-6 record and the NFC East title. Now, after an offseason of recovery from a torn ACL, we ask if the ‘Skins can do it all over again and this time add a playoff run.
The Sunday of this holiday weekend represents the last Sunday sports fans will be without NFL football until the off-week prior to the Super Bowl. At least a mix of baseball, college football and the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series keep the daily sports activity flowing for anyone looking for something to watch.
It’s the first Saturday of college football season, and that means wall-to-wall football. It’s also the final day of August, meaning there’s important playoff race baseball going. And after a dry summer, that adds up to a daily sports feast on Saturday.
The playoff hopefuls are on two weeks’ notice in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, as the circuit goes to Atlanta for the penultimate race of the regular season and an increasingly chaotic picture for the final automatic berths in the postseason and the two wild-card spots. And last year’s champion, Brad Keselowski is on the clock.
…let’s at least keep an eye on the Washington Nationals and Arizona Diamondbacks, who still have a puncher’s chance of running down a wild-card spot. The purpose of today’s MLB coverage will be to assess what kind of chance—if any—we should give the Nats or D-Backs of making it to October.
The biggest series in major league baseball this coming weekend is going to be the NL Central showdown between the St. Louis Cardinals and Pittsburgh Pirates. The Cardinals are playing some good baseball right now, coming off series wins over Atlanta and Cincinnati. The Pirates are sluggish, having lost series to San Francisco and Milwaukee.
