2009 NFL Playoffs Bracket

I thought that I would give you guys a different look at the NFL playoffs.  This is a bracket view of the playoffs and also a great way to see things as a whole.  The reason that its set up like this (with teams like the Giants who dont play anyone until the second round) because there are 2 teams from each Conference that have what we call a bye for the first round which means they play the winners of the Wild Card games.  One of the crazy things this season that I have noticed is that San Diego gets home field advantage against the Colts even though they have a far worse record (8-8) which also makes them only the 2nd NFL team to make the playoffs with a .500 record.  Since they won their division and Indianapolis is a wild card, they get the Wildcard game at home.  I look for the Chargers to go deep if they can keep playing as well as they have.  Otherwise I would probably say its going to be a Ravens-Falcons Superbowl which would be cool.  I think the Falcons and the Chargers are playing the best at this point in the season.

NFL Picks Week 17

I had a half decent week last week going 5-3.  This is the final regular season week for football, so I guess I thought I would give you a preview of what I will more than likely be doing next season now that I have sort of gotten the hang of picking NFL games.  I am going to choose every game played this week.  This should be interesting.  There are a lot of huge games this weekend that have playoff potential.  All Times are Central Standard Time.

12:00PM FOX
(L) St. Louis Rams
(W) Atlanta Falcons

12:00PM CBS
(W) New England Patriots
(L) Buffalo Bills

12:00PM CBS
(L) Kansas CIty Chiefs
(W) Cincinnati Bengals

12:00PM FOX
(L) Detroit Lions
(W) Green Bay Packers

12:00PM CBS
(L) Tennessee Titans
(W) Indianapolis Colts

12:00PM FOX
(L) New York Giants
(W) Minnesota Vikings

12:00PM FOX
(W) Carolina Panthers
(L) New Orleans

12:00PM CBS
(L) Cleveland Browns
(W) Pittsburgh Steelers

12:00PM CBS
(L) Oakland Raiders
(W) Tampa Bay Bucaneers

12:00PM FOX
(W) Chicago Bears
(L) Houston Texans

3:15PM CBS
(L) Miami Dolphins
(W) New York Brets

3:15PM FOX
(W) Dallas Cowboys
(L) Philadelphia Eagles

3:15PM FOX
(L) Seattle Seahawks
(W) Arizona Cardinals

3:15PM FOX
(L) Washington Redskins
(W) San Francisco 49ers

3:15PM CBS
(L) Jacksonville Jaguars
(W) Baltimore Ravens

7:15PM NBC
(L) Denver Broncos
(W) San Diego Chargers

I am 43-25 after 16 weeks with a winning percentage of 63.3%

NCAA Mens Top 50 – Week 6

Lots of teams drop in the polls this week as there have been some pretty big upsets.  Cleveland State, I believe, is one of the most underrated teams in the nation this season which is why I have them hiding down there at #50. Even though they are 9-4, they have played some pretty hardcore teams in which they lost by 2 points to Butler, and 10 points to Kansas State and West Virginia.  They are playing some pretty big named schools for a school that I had never heard of.  I think its possible that they could take the Horizon League this season unless Butler just gets it from them.  Come to think of it, Butlers has played well in the tournament in years past, which makes me think that the Horizon League is a little underrated.

1. North Carolina (71) 11-0 1,775
2. Connecticut 10-0 1,693
3. Pittsburgh 12-0 1,618
4. Oklahoma 11-0 1,580
5. Duke 10-1 1,486
6. Wake Forest 10-0 1,294
7. Gonzaga 8-2 1,154
8. Notre Dame 8-2 1,116
9. Texas 9-2 1,108
10. Purdue 9-2 1,083
11. Michigan State 8-2 907
12. Georgetown 8-1 880
13. UCLA 8-2 873
14. Xavier 9-1 861
15. Ohio State 8-0 766
16. Tennessee 8-2 758
17. Syracuse 11-1 742
18. Villanova 10-1 594
19. Louisville 7-2 521
20. Arizona State 9-1 477
21. Baylor 9-1 466
22. Clemson 12-0 462
23. Minnesota 10-0 198
24. Michigan 8-2 183
25. Missouri 9-1 71
26. Memphis 70
27. Marquette 69
28. Davidson 66
29. Butler 40
30. Dayton 25
31. Saint Mary’s 25
32. Illinois 20
33. Brigham Young 18
34. Maryland 16
35. Texas A&M 11
36. Kansas 10
37. Florida 8
38. Florida State 8
39. Stanford 8
40. Miami (FL) 6
41. Wisconsin 5
42. UNLV 1
43. West Virginia 1
44. Western Kentucky 1
45. George Mason 1
46. LSU
47. Illinois State
48. Arizona
49. Nebraska
50. Cleveland State

Lake Travis wins 4A State Championship in Football

I would like to tell you all that I went to the Division 1 4A State Championship at Floyd Casey Stadium in Waco, Tx yesterday.  It was a great game that started out a little slower that I guess I would have expected, but ended up being one of the greatest football games I have ever seen.  It may not have been all football that caught my eye though.  The Longview band gave me a few laughs during halftime.  Lake Travis players came out after halftime with about 7 minutes left in the halftime show.  This was at the same time the Longview band was on the field performing their halftime show.  Well some of the Lake Travis players decided that it would be funny to start walking onto the field while the rest of the team waited patiently in the endzone.  The whole crowd erupted with boo’s and cursing and with one whistle (by the Drum Major) the entire band did a 180 and started heading towards the Lake Travis players.  They pushed the team off the field twice which caused the crowd to go nuts.  I have to admit this is probably the greatest high school football game that I have ever been to in my entire life.  The atmosphere was electrifying.  I was sitting on the Longview side (worried about being seen by my arch rivals).  The whole reason I went to game in the first place, however, was to was Garrett Gilbert play only because I wont be able to see him play until his red-shirted freshman year (year after next).  He was everything I expected plus more.  He ended up helping the team crush Longview 48-23.  Fans were leaving at the beginning of the 4th quarter.

Lendale White Sends Message to Steelers’ Fans

That message is, “…we stomped you once, we gonna stomp you again.”  Is this really that smart considering they might end up facing them against in 3 weeks or so in the postseason?  I really do not think so, only because there have been teams in the past who have tried that and all it does is fire up the other team and fire up their fans so if they start the game on a big play, touchdown run, or just a long drive that results in some points, then you have a major problem because its just going to get worse.  I promise.  Besides Lendale, while you were stomping the Terrible Towel into the ground on National Television, your team was winning the game.  Look Lendale, youre numbers are down from last year even though you guys are considered the best team in the AFC???  I think you need to be concentrating on something other than how you can piss off 90,000 people with one incident.  This isnt Terrell Owens running out to the star in Dallas to pay homage to the football Gods, this is down right blatantly pissing people off which does nothing for you situation except make you a target next time you guys meet, whether its in the postseason or next season.  Pittsburgh fans do not forget.  Besides, whats the point anyway?  Its just a towel and really only satisfies you to get a message to other fans.  Its just another case of a Diva USC player trying to get as much attention as possible.  I would not be suprised if some of these players started leaking naked pictures of themselves just for the attention.  When that happens, I will no longer be posting or watching NFL games.  At this point, I think I might stop anyway only because my Dallas Cowboys are choke artists.  I hope in 3 weeks I am eating my words, but I have been screwed too many times to give a hoot what you people think.

West Texas A&M 2009 Regular Season Schedule

For West Texas A&M, the 2009 schedule is just another schedule of teams to play during the year.  One would almost expect them to get a playoff berth next season considering how well they did this season.  They got shafted in the sense that they only get 5 home games and play 6 on the road.   They start off the season with two games at home and then travel to Washington and Oklahoma in week 3 and 4.  I would look for West Texas A&M to end up 9-2 if they have a great season and 7-4 which will hopefully still give them a playoff berth.  Whats sad is they could go into their conference schedule 1-3 or 2-2.  They have some monsters to start out with and then should be able to manhandle everyone but Abilene Christian which is one of their away games.  Its going to be an interesting season to say the least and with the recent firing of Quarterbacks Coach Ryan Leif, its going to be interesting to see how they do next year with a new Quarterbacks Coach.

2009 WT Football Schedule

August 29 - Grand Valley State – Canyon, Texas 6:00PM CST

September 5 – Central Oklahoma^ – Canyon, Texas 6:00PM CST

September 12 – at Central Washington – Ellensburg, Wash. TBA

September 19 – at Southwestern Oklahoma State^ – Weatherford, Okla. TBA

September 26 – Texas A&M-Kingsville* – Canyon, Texas 6:00PM CST

October 3 - at Midwestern State* – Wichita Falls, Texas TBA

October 10 – Eastern New Mexico*# – Canyon, Texas 6:00PM CST

October 17 - at Abilene Christian* – Abilene, Texas TBA

October 24 - Angelo State* – Canyon, Texas 6:00PM CST

October 31 – at Northeastern State^ – Tahlequah, Okla. TBA

November 7 - at Tarleton State* – Stephenville, Texas TBA

Richmond Blows Montana out for National Championship!

I hope you were watching the FCS National Championship instead of flipping back and forth from that to the Lakers game.  I swear I was watching the game and it was tied 0-0 and I change it to the Lakers game and watch 9 minutes of the game and change it back…but this time its 14-0 Richmond.  I changed it back and forth until I finally decided to watch the Lakers for a while.  I change it back and its half time…21-0 Richmond.  Jesus, can Montana start out any worse than they had??? Well considering Richmond is 21-1 when leading at halftime, I knew it was going to be hard for the Grizz to get back into the game.  Sure enough, it was a pretty rough second half and the final score…Richmond 24 Montana 7.  Montana played some hard nosed defense in the second half only allowing 3 points, but the Grizz just couldn’t get it going on the offensive side of the ball.  When it comes down to it, the problem the Montana Grizz had for most of the game were the turnovers.  2 turnovers will kill you when the other team isn’t coughing up the ball.  I cannot wait to see Eric Ward at the next level.  He is the perfect player for the Wildhog offense.  He reminds me of a Michael Vick but without the dog fighting.  Look for him to go pretty high in the draft.  Possibly even a first dayer.  He had 165 all purpose yards including throwing a touchdown pass, catching a touchdown pass, and rushing for almost 50 yards.  Bergquist was great between the 20′s but coughed the football up with one interception but had over 250 yards passing on the night.  Richmond also had 7 sacks on the night which still has Bergquist shaking in his little space booties.

Do we need the rest of the Regular Season???

Twenty five games into the season and so far its a 3 team race.  The Lakers, Cavaliers, and the Celtics all have twenty or more wins at this point.  The Lakers have already sealed the deal with the Western Conference and only the Celtics have a larger lead in their division.  At this point, there are only 5 teams in the Eastern Conference that are above .500 in win percentage which means that the Celtics could probably clinch a playoff spot before the all star break.  With the Lakers being 8 games ahead of 8th place Utah Jazz, this could mean a playoff clinch in the next couple of months.  I will make my predictions now that it will be a Kobe – Lebron showdown in the NBA Finals.  It could possibly be a rematch between the Lakers and the Celtics but I am going to go with the upset in the playoffs.  I think the Celtics will go into the playoffs with home court advantage but I think Lebron James is about as clutch as a player can be in the NBA.  Look for Kobe to go off towards the end of the season.  I am looking forward to the Christmas matchup of Lakers vs. Celtics.

Stony Point ranked higher than Lake Travis?

Depending on who you talk to and where you look, you will see Stony Point High School in Round Rock is ranked higher (6th in the State of Texas) than Lake Travis High School (ranked 7th).  This makes absolutely no sense to me only because Stony Point has lost 2 games this season and Lake Travis is currently undefeated playing in the Texas 4A State Championship.  Stony Point can only go down from here though I would think.  They are out of the playoffs already and their season is through.  I am seriously contemplating going to the Lake Travis game tomorrow.  I havent figured out if thats what I want to do yet or not.  I will more than likely be going to the game though even though it means missing the Division 3 National Championship and the Montana game.   I am doing this only because I really want to see Garrett Gilbert play.  If he ever reads this, I hope he realizes that he has a huge fan in SideLineBlog.  We do sports the right way, and I want to officially make this statement, “Sidelineblog.com believes that Lake Travis High School should be ranked #1 in the nation.”  This is true because they have not lost this season, outside of the first game of the season, their closest game has been 15 points.  They beat Killeen on a neutral field 71-9 in the Area playoffs.  I don’t think they are playing around.

NFL Picks Week 16

There are a few good games this week.  Its coming down to the last two weeks of the season and we have some pretty close races.  Are the Dallas Cowboys going to let the drama get to them and choke like they have so many times in the past?  Or will they get their acts together with Pacman Jones coming back and Tony Romo playing with a hurt back, will they be able to get it done against one of the 9-5 teams of the league, Baltimore Ravens.   Baltimore is probably still sick from their loss against the referee’s in the last game in Baltimore.  Anyways, I went 4-2 last week losing the Bengals game which really was a fluke and I had no clue that the Redskins were going to break down like that, and the Denver game which I picked wrong from the start.  Hopefully this week will be better!

All Times are Central Time

Saturday, December 20th, 2008

7:15PM NFL Network
(L) Baltimore Ravens 9-5
(W) Dallas Cowboys 9-5

Sunday, December 21st, 2008

12:00PM FOX
(W) New Orleans Saints 7-7
(L) Detroit Lions 0-14

12:00PM CBS
(W) Miami Dolphins 9-5
(L) Kansas City Chiefs 2-12

12:00PM FOX
(W) San Francisco 49ers 5-9
(L) St. Louis Rams 2-12

3:05PM CBS
(W) New York Jets 9-5
(L) Seattle Seahawks 3-11

Bold Picks of the Week

3:15PM FOX
(L) Philadelphia Eagles 8-5
(W) Washington Redskins 7-7

7:15PM NBC
(W) Carolina Panthers 11-3
(L) New York Giants 11-3

Monday Night Football

7:30PM ESPN
(L) Green Bay Packers 5-9
(W) Chicago Bears 8-6

I am 38-22 after 16 weeks of football winning 63% of the time.

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