The NFL’s new Overtime Rules

The National Football League has decided to change the rules for how overtime will play out beginning next season. While the rules will only affect playoff games, they fall in line with the rule change that the league instituted for regular-season games a few years ago.

For years, overtime in professional football was sudden death, meaning that the first team to score in OT was the winner, no matter how the score occurred. If the team that has the ball first in OT scores a touchdown, that team wins. However, if the team kicks a field goal on its first drive, the other team gets a chance to win with a TD. If both teams can only manage field goals on their first drives, or neither scores, then the game becomes sudden death until the end of the 10-minute OT period.

In the playoffs, under the new rules, even if the first team with the ball scores a touchdown, the second team will get a chance to score a touchdown to tie the game. If the second team scores a touchdown, the game becomes sudden death, and the team continues playing 10-minute periods with three-minute breaks between periods until one team scores.

This rule change came about because during a Bills-Chiefs playoff game, the Chiefs scored a TD on their first drive of OT, and the Bills did not get a chance to touch the ball. Bills fans and team execs were upset because after the two teams scored four touchdowns in the last two minutes of regulation, the team had no opportunity to tie the game.

Many rule changes like this in sports are knee-jerk reactions to situations like the end of the Bills-Chiefs game. Because it was a playoff game, and because the Bills shredded the Chief defense in the closing minutes of regulation, the Bills felt they should have had a chance to do it again in OT. Unfortunately, just like with the now-legendary Tuck Rule Game, the rules are the rules.

If the Bills were so upset about the game's outcome, the simple solution would have been for their defense to not surrender a TD to the Chiefs in OT or the last few minutes of regulation. If the Bills' defense had made a stop on one of the three drives of the last two minutes of regulation or OT, then the Bills would have won the game.

It is understandable to have a knee-jerk reaction to a situation, and this new rule change is simply that. This rule is a reaction to the Bills losing how they did. However, once a team complains after losing in OT when the team scored first, the NFL will review the rule again.  

The new rule is the new rule, and as fans, all we can do is sit back and enjoy the games. Whether our team wins or loses, unless it was due to a blown referee call, as the whistle in the Raiders/Bengals game, all we can do is celebrate if our team wins or wait until next time otherwise. The rules are not always going to go our way.

Review - The Top 50 Women Superstars in WWE History

 Recently, WWE unveiled a list of what it called the Top 50 Women Superstars in WWE History. Keep in mind that countdown lists like this are always open to conjecture and debate because no two people will agree on the whole list. However, claiming to include the top 50 women in the history of WWE proves that the list is flawed. 

The list only includes women from WWE’s so-called Modern Era, meaning that one criterion for inclusion is that you had to have been active between 1993 and 2021. Therefore, Wendi Richter, The Fabulous Moolah, Miss Elizabeth, and Sensational Sherri are all left off the list, even though Moolah won the title once in 1999. Also, WWE indicated that it had ranked Women Superstars, not Female Wrestlers, but names like Sunny, Debra, and Torrie Wilson are suspiciously absent from the list.

Supposedly, the list is based on in-ring accomplishments while considering women who made their mark outside of the ring. Even though Kelly Kelly is a former Divas Champion, her impact was less than that of Debra or Sunny, but Kelly² ranks at number 46, ahead of Shotzi Blackheart and Kay Lee Ray, who is in the midst of a nearly two-year reign as the NXT UK Women's Champion.

The Bella Twins are on the list as a tandem at number 26, even though between the two of them, they have three reigns as WWE Divas Champion. Though Brie won her title before Nikki, Nikki holds the record for the longest reign and the shortest legitimate reign, except for Jillian Hall’s five-minute reign as champion. Seemingly, Nikki should be on the list by herself, and she should be ranked higher than her sister. Also, both Bellas should be ranked higher than Stephanie McMahon, who enters the list at number 23.

Stephanie is ranked higher than Ivory, Miss Jacqueline, the Bellas, Gail Kim, and both the Io Shirai, the NXT Women’s Champ, who has reigned for over 300 days, and Kay Lee Ray. Steph is pivotal to the success of WWE, but classifying her as a WWE superstar is a stretch. However, just like her father and brother, she has been booked as a champion from time to time.

Issues like Natalya having a higher ranking than Michelle McCool, or Sable, Molly, Paige, and Victoria being higher than AJ Lee confirm that the list is nothing more than a display of Vince’s opinion at the time. Any fan of WWE knows that everything that goes on comes from the whims of VKM, and this list might look extraordinarily different a month from now. That said, the list is open for debate because I know that there will be many who will disagree with everything that I just said.

Sports While We Shelter-in-Place

COVID-19, otherwise known as the Coronavirus, has changed society as we knew it. Working and schooling from home have become the new normal, for the time being, but perhaps the biggest change to society has been the absence of new sports content. The homestretches of the NBA and NHL seasons, March Madness, and the traditional opening day of Major League Baseball have all been lost due the state and national restrictions for people to avoid physical contact and large crowds due to the contagious nature of the virus. However, sports in total did not have to go away, because there are ways to create new competitive sports content that haven’t yet been explored.

The NBA, WNBA and ESPN will be broadcasting a basketball H-O-R-S-E competition, where competitors will appear from the individual locales, and perform will shots while their opponent has to try to replicate the shots from their individual locations. This is a novel idea, but real sports could have been held with just a little thought and planning.

During a recent conversation between Stephen A. Smith and the hosts of ESPN’s Golic and Wingo show, Smith mentioned a number of sports that could still be held while adhering to the government’s mandates for isolation and separation.

Smith mentioned baseball, tennis and golf, but of those three, baseball would not work because each team carries 25 players plus a number of coaches, bat boys, trainers, equipment personnel, as well as the four umpires and the necessary broadcast personnel. Even though the games would be held in outdoor facilities, that is still a significant number of participants, and there are still instances where the players are in close quarters, whether it is a player being held on first base by an opposing first baseman, or the 20+ players and coaches who sit in the dugout while a single player is batting.

As for tennis and golf, these sports could be held because, in addition to being held outdoors, there are far fewer participants than many other sports.

The most players who participate in any tennis match is four, so those four players, a line judge, and a ball person would be all who would be needed on the court. Add in the player’s coaches and the broadcast personnel, and the total number of people involved would be less than 20. With the sport being held outdoors, minus an audience, professional tennis matches could be held while adhering to social distancing. The players would have to change sides on opposite sides on the court, and would have to avoid shaking hands after the match, but the events could be held.

The PGA Tour’s first Major Tournament of the year, The Masters, was postponed because of the virus, but similar precautions could make golf a viable sport during these times. Start times would have to be spaced out a little further so that there are only two golfers on a particular hole at a particular time, and again, with no fans in attendance, two golfers, two caddies, an official and the broadcast personnel would be all who were in a particular spot on the course at a particular time.

Other sports like pro bowling, billiards and diving could be held with some planning and precautions, but in short, and with a little effort, the void of not holding sporting events could be filled.

Kareem's Greatness Should Not be Overlooked

During 8 of his last 10 NBA seasons, not including the current season, Lebron James’ teams have reached the NBA Finals. In the world of ‘Hot Take’ media this is looked upon as a tremendous accomplishment because James has added a virtual two additional season’s worth of games with his post season appearances. While this is certainly a tremendous accomplishment and should not be diminished in any way, looking at it in context and without a recency bias, we realize that there is one who has done this also, but on another level.

This is not another, “What about Bill Russell” piece, because Russell went to the Finals and won titles 8 years in a row and 11 times in 13 years, but granted, there were fewer rounds of playoffs and by default, fewer post season games. This is about the Captain, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who during his last 10 years in the NBA, appeared in the NBA Finals 8 times, enduring 3-4 rounds of playoffs to achieve this. However, what makes this great is not that Kareem achieved a seemingly equal standard to Lebron. It is seemingly greater when the whole of the picture is examined.

Lebron’s ten-year run occurred between years 6 and 15 of his career, while Kareem’s run happened between years 11 and 20 of his. This is a big difference in prime years, but the major difference is what happened before.

Lebron came to the NBA directly from high school, which means that he did not appear in any college games. Kareem stayed in college all four years, and though he was not allowed to play varsity ball during his Freshman year, his other three teams won the NCAA Title, meaning that they played 12 additional games combined during those three seasons, or an additional half of a college season. Add to that the fact that Kareem played in 79 playoff games during his first 10 seasons, and you see that Kareem had finished 10 seasons with enough games for 11 NBA seasons when his run started, and this was after 100+ Varsity College games coming out of high school.  

What Lebron has achieved is phenomenal, just as Bill Russell’s career should never be overlooked, However, Kareem staying in college for four years, playing three full seasons where his teams played through the NCAA Title game each year, and then appearing in 20 NBA seasons with an additional 237 playoff games, including 158 playoff games and 8 trips to the Finals during his last 10 seasons, this is something that basketball fans should hear about more often.

Modern basketball fans know about the greatness of Lebron James, and people will accept that Kareem was great, but the career of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar might actually be greater than basketball fans realize.

A Solution to the Load Management Problem

“Load Management”, the new buzzword in sports, is when a healthy star player sits out a game during the regular season for the purpose of having more energy and being less beaten up during the playoffs. Load management is not a new concept, as during the 80s, when Pat Riley was coaching the Showtime Lakers, Riles would sit one or more of his stars out of late season home games. Once the Lakers had secured their playoff seeding, and had nothing to play for heading into the playoffs, Riley would sit players. The difference was that if Magic would sit out, Kareem, Worthy, Scott & Rambis would still play.

In the 2000s, Spurs coach Gregg Popovich got into trouble with the league when he, borrowing a page from Riley’s book, would sit all of his star players on the same day, particularly if the opponent on that day had something to play for, even if the Spurs did not. The NBA felt that the Spurs were violating the sanctity of the league by creating outcomes that affected several teams, perhaps with the underlying purpose of bettering the Spurs’ situation.

Today, load management is a problem for the NBA and its fans because star players are sitting out games early in the season under the belief that the player would be healthier in April after sitting out a game in November. The problem is that players are sitting out nationally televised games or their teams only visit to a particular city. The issue started when Lebron James, while playing for Cleveland, elected to sit out his team’s only trip to Memphis, knowing that the Grizzly fans would not get to see James again in Memphis that season because the Griz were not going to make the NBA Finals.

Kawhi Leonard is the face of load management today because he indicated, before signing with the Clippers, that he intended to miss around 22 games during the current season because this approached helped the Toronto Raptors win the NBA Title in 2019.

The NBA and Commissioner Adam Silver have no idea what to do about load management, especially since Leonard is truly injured, but his team is offering load management instead of injury rest as the reason for his absences so far. That said, there is a very simple solution that would satisfy NBA fans and still allow players to appear in fewer games as their team prepares for the playoffs.

The NBA schedule consists of 4 games against a team’s division opponents, 4 games against 6 opponents from the same conference, 3 games against the other 4 conference teams, and finally, 2 games against every team from the opposing conference. Every team competes under the same schedule, and as such, creates an opportunity for every team to “load manage” a single star down to a 58 game season without alienating any NBA city.

The player could sit out one home game and one road game against the team’s division opponents, and the 6 conference opponents the team faces 4 times in the season. This would be 20 games that the player could miss. In addition, against the team where the player’s team will meet 3 times, the player can sit out one of the games in whichever city is hosting two games, meaning that the player would still play one game at home and on the road against these 4 teams and still sit out 4 more games. Against the opposing conference, the player would have to play in every game.

The total games missed would be 24 games, meaning that a load managing player would only have to play in 58 games, missing 24, and would still appear once in every NBA city and against every NBA team. Of course, nationally televised games would adjust this schedule, but a healthy player looking to load manage could do so while at the same time making sure that he is seen at least once in every NBA city. The player would only appear in 29 of his team’s 41 home games, but that would be the team’s problem, because the rest of the league would get to see Lebron, Kawhi, Lillard or whichever star they wanted to see at least once during the season, and the player would be able to get his desired rest.

What Do You Offer To The Free Agents Who Have Everything?

Recently, an interesting question was raised with regards to the upcoming NBA Free Agent signing period. Usually, when one of the top players in the league finishes a season without a contract for the following season, pundits attempt to predict which of several factors will determine the player’s next NBA address. Experts try to guess if the player will be swayed by the chance to make the most money, the opportunity to win a championship, or the potential of being the top dog on their new franchise. However, at the top of this year’s free agent class is a group of players who have already experienced the things that other free agents are still looking for.

Headlining the 2019 NBA Free Agent class are Kevin Durant, Kawhi Leonard, Kyrie Irving and Klay Thompson. Between the four of them are seven NBA titles, with each man having won at least one. In addition, each of these men, except for Klay Thompson, has won the NBA Finals MVP Award, though Klay is considered one of the two best shooters in the game, alongside his “Splash Brother” teammate Steph Curry. Each of them have achieved at the highest level, can make the most money with their current teams, and have been no worse than the second best players on their teams, so the question surrounding their free agency is what these men could possibly be looking for going forward.

If either KD or Klay were to decide to leave the Warriors, it might be in order to get out from under the shadow of Steph Curry, who is considered the unquestioned leader of the team. However, there is no superstar in the league more willing to share the spotlight than Steph, and staying with Steph means, for the immediate future, more opportunities to win titles with Steph instead of competing against him.

Kawhi is already the man on his franchise, he has already won a title, and Toronto can pay him more than anyone else. Him leaving the Raptors would probably be for an opportunity to return home to Southern California, as he has indicated is something that he would like to do at some point. However, would he surrender his top dog status to play alongside Lebron with the Lakers, or would he join the Clippers, a franchise that is much like Toronto was before he joined the team; just on the cusp of being a serious contender?

Irving is perhaps the most intriguing of the four, and he very well may be the dominoes that has to topple before the others fall into place. Irving left Lebron in order to be the man in Boston, but not before winning a championship in Cleveland. Boston can pay Irving the most, but the team might not want to. If he signs wherever Durant signs, then Irving will not be the top dog, so Irving must figure out what it is that he wants, and where he can go to get whatever it is.

These four top NBA players present very interesting problems for NBA GM's and owners, because it will be difficult to know how to present an organization to each man. For a player like Jimmy Butler, teams would be wise to offer all three; money, title chances, and top dog status. On the other hand, a player like DeAndre Jordan might be swayed by status and money, with a title being a distant third. However, KD, Klay, Kyrie and Kawhi have already had it all, so, especially with regards to NBA Free Agency, what do you get for the man who has had everything already? That is what GM's and owners will have to ask themselves before they present to these players.

A Competitive Tiger Woods is Both Good and Bad for the Sport of Golf

When Mike Tyson defeated Larry Holmes in 1988, after the fight, Tyson said that it was great to have the name Larry Holmes on Tyson’s boxing resume. However, Tyson also added that if the Larry Holmes that he had just faced was the Larry Holmes who, in his prime, had dominated the Heavyweight division, then Tyson felt that Holmes would have easily defeated him.

Many PGA golfers probably felt the same way during the many injury comebacks of Tiger Woods. For these golfers, winning a tournament with Tiger Woods in the field probably looked good on paper, but since it was no longer the great Tiger Woods, then the victory probably didn’t mean as much. Unfortunately, the old Tiger seems to be back on his game, and now, the rest of men’s pro golf might be able to enjoy their victories over Tiger more than in the last few years.  

The best and worst thing that could happen to men’s pro golf was Tiger Woods winning the 2018 Tour Championship and then winning the 2019 Masters. These victories came against the best of the best golfers in the world, and in defeating them, Tiger showed that he was among the best of the best in the world. This is good for golf because now, more casual fans will tune in to PGA golf, at least when Tiger is in the field, because there will be a belief that he might win the tournament. Where it is bad for golf is that Tiger winning again might make it more difficult for other golfers to win tournaments, but it will also make the victories much more satisfying.

No one will expect Tiger to win, or be the favorite every week, but having a competitive Tiger competing in tournaments, and ranked in the Top-10 in the world rankings, helps every other golfer on the tour. Now, when someone other than Tiger wins a tournament with Tiger in the field, they will not have to apologize for winning, as Tyson did in ’88, feeling that the victory is worth less because the win came over a shell of what the man used to be.