Category: Sports

Ragin’ Crap From the Illini and Frank the Tank’s College Football Parlay – 9/18/2008

On By Frank the TankIn Big Ten, College Football, Illinois Fighting Illini, SportsLeave a comment

I attended the Illinois – Louisiana-Lafayette game this past weekend in person and let’s just say that I enjoyed the company and the new look of the west side of Memorial Stadium, but little about the actual contest on the field.  Juice Williams telegraphed several passes to the opposing defense as usual, the wide receivers ended up dropping passes even when Juice ended up throwing the ball well, Rejus Benn seemed to be on the field for 58 out of 60 minutes yet was a complete non-factor, the Illinois defense allowed significant plays to an inferior offense, and all phases of the Illini suffered from a lackadaisical attitude and idiotic penalties.  Deron Williams deserved a much better effort after his return to campus just off of winning a gold medal in Beijing.  (Speaking of Beijing, check out this Chicago Tribune article on the significant impact that the University of Illinois has had on the development of the Paralympic Games both here in the U.S. and around the world.)  The only positive comparison that I’ve seen is how the Illini played against Western Illinois last season, where the team similarly looked sluggish against a clearly inferior team yet went on to reach the Rose Bowl.  I hope that’s the case, but I’m concerned that Juice is still making some of the same mistakes as a junior that he was incurring as a freshman.  I’ll give him credit that he’s making some more accurate downfield throws this year and I’m long past the point of believing that he’ll ever be a great pocket passer, but his habit of looking straight at the receivers that he’s about to throw to is not going work when Big Ten conference play starts in two weeks at Penn State (let’s hope he looks a bit better on our first prime time ABC telecast of the season than Ohio State’s tandem of quarterbacks did last week).  Juice’s arm is going to be much more of a factor for the rest of this season with the Illini running attack clearly truncated without the presence of Rashard Mendenhall.  The fact that we open up the Big Ten portion of the schedule with back-to-back road games in Happy Valley and Ann Arbor means that we need to use this bye week to get things back into order very quickly if we want to make a January bowl game.  The bye week also gives me the chance to pick three games without having to worry about the Illini (home teams in CAPS):

(1) Notre Dame Fighting Irish (+8.5) over MICHIGAN STATE SPARTANS – I’ve seen the horror story called “Michigan State hosting Notre Dame” way too many times.  I doubt that Michigan State is going to give up 97 turnovers in a game in the same manner as its in-state rival last week, but there will be a brain-freeze by the Spartans at some point which will at least allow the Irish to cover the spread (if not win the game outright).

(2) Iowa Hawkeyes (+1) over PITTSBURGH PANTHERS – Dave Wannstedt is still coaching Pitt… ’nuff said.

(3) FLORIDA INTERNATIONAL GOLDEN PANTHERS (+28) over South Florida Bulls – I’ll admit this is a complete gut feeling here since FIU has lost 2 games by a combined score of 82-10, including a 40-10 loss to a Kansas team that USF just beat last week.  Still, FIU is at home opening a brand new on-campus stadium against a USF team that I’m already on the record of being skeptical of the Bulls on the road.  Such a large spread with the road team as a favorite is a red flag in my eyes, so I’m taking the points here.

Frank the Tank’s College Football Parlay Record
Last Week: 1-2
Illini Games for the Season: 0-2
Overall Season: 5-4

(Image from Chicago Tribune)

Excited Once More and Frank the Tank’s NFL Football Parlay Picks – 9/12/2008

On By Frank the TankIn Big Ten, Chicago Bears, College Football, NFL Football, Sports1 Comment

Like Michael Corleone, every time that I think that I’m out with the Bears, they pull me back in.  After writing a screed last week about how this is probably the least excited that I’ve been for an upcoming Bears season, they of course go out an pull off a monster upset on the road on national television.  After a few days of being drunk off of the Matt Forte Kool-Aid, a couple of things have brought me down to Earth.  First, it was remembering the occurrence of a punchless group of Bears heading into Green Bay on Sunday Night Football last year and administering an upset on par with the one this past Sunday evening, with Lovie Smith’s crew then dumping its offense into quicksand shortly thereafter.  Second, this David Haugh column in the Chicago Tribune goes over some pretty poor recent years for the Bears that followed an unexpected wins in the season openers.  Couple that with the fact that the second game of the year is at Carolina, who is coming off their own unexpected road win at San Diego, and it’s apparent that we’re not in the clear as of yet.  Well, at least I can proceed under the guise that we are at least playoff contenders in some form or fashion.  On to this week’s pro parlay picks (home teams in CAPS):

(1) Green Bay Packers (-3) over DETROIT LIONS – Let me just say that I loathe picking the Packers at any point in time, but the oddsmakers have left me no choice for the second week in a row.  The Lions just lost by 13 points to an Atlanta team that featured a rookie starting the first game of his career and allowed LaDainian Tomlinson’s old backup to run for 220 yards.  As I stated yesterday, I’m not one to question Vegas bookies, but I don’t see how this spread could be less than a touchdown in favor of Green Bay.  So, I’m giving the points here.

(2) New Orleans Saints (pick ’em) over WASHINGTON REDSKINS – I’ve always liked the home field advantage for the Redskins, but that only takes you so far.  It’s possible that Washington played as horribly as they could have played last Thursday night, yet it’s more possible that they are simply horrific this season.  Getting to lay money down on the Saints’ offensive machine against this lackluster ‘Skins team straight up is a gift.

(3) CAROLINA PANTHERS (-3) over Chicago Bears – Let me preface this pick by saying that this isn’t for reverse jinx purposes, although I’ll gladly fall on my sword in real life here.  As I alluded to above, the Panthers themselves came away with an impressive road win against a superior-on-paper AFC opponent last week just like the Bears.  I don’t think that the Panthers (regardless of the presence of Steve Smith) are necessarily better than the Bears, but they are close enough talent-wise that I believe that the home field will be determining factor.  If this game were to be played at Soldier Field, I’d take the Bears, yet since it’s in Charlotte, I’ve got to give the points.

I’ll be enjoying the weekend in lovely Champaign and checking out the newly renovated Memorial Stadium.  Hopefully, Illinois won’t have too many problems with the Ragin’ Cajuns.  Have a great weekend and Go Bears, Go White Sox, and Go Illini!

Frank the Tank’s NFL Football Parlay Record
Last Week: 2-1
Bears Games for the Season: 0-1
Overall Season: 2-1

(Image from Chicago Tribune)

Offensive Spread and Frank the Tank’s College Football Parlay – 9/11/2008

On By Frank the TankIn Big Ten, Chicago Bears, Illinois Fighting Illini, NFL Football, SportsLeave a comment

In my opinion, one of the most underrated keys to gambling “effectively” is knowing when to not put money down (you’ve got to know when to fold ’em).  For instance, regular poker players usually feast on amateurs that make the mistake of needing the action and playing too many hands.  Likewise, there are certain times where you’re better off putting all of your savings on “black” at the roulette table than even entertaining the thought of betting on certain football games.  When looking at mgoblog’s account of how the line on the Notre Dame – Michigan game swung 5 points in one direction a week ago and then 9.5 points in the other direction this week, it’s apparent that the Vegas bookies have thrown up their hands with a collective “WTF?!” as to predicting either the Irish or the Wolverines.  I’d advise that those heading to Las Vegas this weekend stay far away from ND/UM considering that I trust the following sources with predictions in life in this order: (1) the Iowa Electronic Markets, (2) Vegas bookies, (3) Warren Buffet, (4) the Farmer’s Almanac, (5) Nostradamus, and (6,602,224,175) Woody Paige.  On to this week’s parlay (home teams in CAPS):

(1) Ohio State Buckeyes (+10.5) over USC TROJANS – The most highly anticipated inter-conference matchup of the season has some of the buzz removed as a result of tOSU’s troubles with tOU last week and the injury to Beanie Wells.  Couple this with the increasing aura around USC its dismantling of Virginia in week one and you now have the national conventional wisdom that the Trojans are going to slap the Buckeyes out of L.A. in the same manner as my Illini back in January.  Given my preternatural disposition to going against such a tidal wave of group think and the fact that Ohio State has a history of looking lackadaisical the week before a big game (i.e. Illinois seems to catch Ohio State off guard on a regular basis partly because they usually play the week before the OSU/Michigan game) but then following it up with a performance up to par with the team’s talent, I believe that this is going to turn into the instant classic that college football fans were banking on during the offseason.  And make no mistake, people, the Buckeyes, even without Wells, still have a loaded team.  At the end of the day, 10.5 points is way too large of a spread for two relatively well-matched teams in what should be an emotional game – take the points here.

(2) Wisconsin Badgers (-1.5) over FRESNO STATE BULLDOGS – tOSU isn’t the only Big Ten school heading to California this weekend.  Quite frankly, I’m shocked that Wisconsin, which has largely adopted the 1990’s Kansas State approach of scheduling entire non-conference slates of women’s prison league teams, is actually playing on the road against any school, much less a ranked non-BCS conference team.  In the same manner as the Ohio State – USC point spread, the spread in this game is partly a function of the lackluster performance by the Badgers last weekend against a clearly inferior opponent.  Still, I believe that Wisky is legit – as much as I correctly loved East Carolina and Central Florida in their respective home stadiums last week, I’m giving the points for the major conference school on the road this week.

(3) ILLINOIS FIGHTING ILLINI (-24.5) over Louisiana-Lafayette Ragin’ Cajuns – Add non-conference body bag games with spreads of over three touchdowns to the list of contests that I would never actually put money on.  At the same time, judging by the fact that I’m perfect so far in my pro and college picks on games not involving my favorite teams while laying a goose egg on the Bears and Illinois, there’s a reaffirmation of the wise old adage of never betting on a team that you actually care about in real life.  Still, this is an Illini blog with a promise to include the Illini game in the weekly parlay, so I’ll give the points here relying on the assumptions that (a) Juice Williams will avoid telegraphing his passes to defenders in the first quarter, (b) the Ragin’ Cajuns come out with as little in the tank as it did in its 30-point loss to Southern Mississippi two weeks ago, and (c) Illinois couldn’t possibly fail to cover the spread when Frank the Tank is attending this game in person in Champaign.

The NFL parlay picks are coming tomorrow.

Frank the Tank’s College Football Parlay Record
Last Week: 2-1
Illini Games for the Season: 0-1
Overall Season: 4-2

(Image from New York Times)

The Problem With Last Year’s Bulls, New Illini Basketball Schedule, the Blind Side, United Stock Scare, and Exception to Idiots-Out-Walking-Around – Land-o-Links for 9/10/2008

On By Frank the TankIn Big Ten, Business, College Basketball, College Football, Illinois Fighting Illini, Land-o-Links, Major League Baseball, NBA Basketball, NFL Football, Sports1 Comment

As both White Sox and Cubs fans watch their respective teams plummet, here are some links to take your mind off of Chicago baseball:

(1) Knowing is Only Half the Battle in Chicago (Wages of Wins Journal) – The always fascinating Wages of Wins Journal takes an in-depth look at why there was such a drop-off in wins for the Bulls from 2006-07 to 2007-08.  Through statistical analysis, the problem was simple to identify – offensive shooting efficiency was way down last year.  Of course, improving upon this is another matter.  As one of the commenters to the post noted and anyone who watched the Bulls regularly last season noticed, the team appeared to have a significant increase in the number of attempted jumpshots as opposed to shots in the paint.  I think this is a result of the Bulls’ previously weak-to-average post presence in P.J. Brown leaving for Boston, which left the team with no post presence whatsoever.  The key to Derrick Rose turning this team around over time is setting up those high percentage shots from the floor for his teammates.  I have been high on Rose since he was a high schooler and think that he’s up to the challenge, but Wages of Wins correctly notes that the immediate impact that he’ll have next season will be up in the air considering that you have to expect lower performance from a rookie (no matter how talented he might be).

(2) 2008-09 Illini Basketball Schedule Announced (Illini Basketball Fans Blog) – The test will be to see how the Illinois can get through the non-conference schedule in November and December without the services of Alex Legion.  For the team’s sake (but not for the sake of fan interest), the non-conference slate is a bit easier than last season.  Interesting games to note include a road game at Vanderbilt in the third game of the year on November 20th, Clemson at the Assembly Hall in the ACC/Big Ten Challenge on December 2nd, Georgia at the United Center a few days later on December 6th, and the Braggin’ Rights Game against Missouri in St. Louis being moved to the Tuesday right before Christmas on December 23rd.

(3) NFL Salaries: Believe in the Blind Side (New York Times: Freakonomics Blog) – Here’s a look at the average salaries at each position in the NFL, which reinforces what well-informed football fans know already: after the quarterback, the next highest-paid position in football is the left tackle.  As the referenced Michael Lewis book “The Blind Side” noted, this makes logical sense since the left tackle protects the blind side of the right-handed quarterback (if a quarterback is left-handed like me, it’s the right tackle that becomes the key offensive lineman), so it’s essentially an insurance policy to protect the most valuable player on the team.  (By the way, Lewis is one of my favorite writers on business and sports.  His first-hand account of being a bond trader in the 1980s in “Liar’s Poker” is a classic and entertaining read regardless of whether you’re interested in finance.)  Even more interesting is how little most running backs are paid considering how much they handle the ball.  This actually makes a lot of sense to me – while there are a handful of running backs today such as LaDainian Tomlinson and Adrian Peterson that are truly unique talents, the success of most RBs is almost entirely dependent on the offensive line.  Hence, teams such as Pittsburgh and Denver that have historically had strong offensive lines have been able to plug in a number of running backs over the years yet continue to get great production.

(4) Google, Tribune Co. At Odds Over Spread of United Story (Chicago Tribune) – Speaking of financial matters, United Airlines stock plunged on Monday when a report from the South Florida Sun-Sentinel came across the newswires that the company was filing for bankruptcy.  It was later discovered that the report was a copy of the original Chicago Tribune story that was posted on the Sun-Sentinel website from when UAL filed for bankruptcy back in 2002.  Drive and Dish goes through a great analysis of how all news organizations and websites need to take greater care in getting accurate facts.

More disturbing, though, is a follow-up today about a squabble between Google and the Tribune Company (which owns both the Tribune and the Sun-Sentinel), where it appears that the Google News engine put Monday’s date on the old Sun-Sentinel story.  Thus, this shock to the markets appears to have been caused by a news aggregator putting a wrong date on a link.  If you’re an investor like me, the speed with which the market reacted to what turned out to be an old news story is absolutely frightening.  It’s clear that there are journalistic standards that news organizations need to stand by in terms of getting stories accurately reported.  However, what obligation do news aggregators, who are in essence posting links from those news organizations, have in terms of ensuring that the date and time stamps to those links are correct?  The United scenario that played out on Monday has probably just opened up a whole new area of the securities litigation – shareholders that saw their stock dive as a result of wrong date and time stamps might have some ammunition against Google and other news aggregators.  Whether those shareholders could actually prove that Google and other news aggregators have some type of legal duty to the general public with respect to checking these date and time stamps, though, is another matter that can’t be answered at this time.

And finally…

(5) Black Heart Gold Pants – Once you get past the initial shock of discovering the existence of literate Iowa graduates, this college football blog devoted to the Hawkeyes and, by extension, the rest of the Big Ten will vault to the top of your must-read list.  Even the occasional/frequent thrashings of the Illini are entertaining enough that all is forgiven (and the blog’s love of all things J Leman has become legendary on the interweb).

Parlay picks for this weekend are coming over the next couple of days.  Until then, let’s hope that the White Sox can stem the tide of awfulness that is taking them over.

(Image from Arbiter Online)

I Love the Reverse Jinx

On By Frank the TankIn Big Ten, Chicago Bears, Chicago White Sox, College Football, Illinois Fighting Illini, Major League Baseball, NFL Football, SportsLeave a comment

If getting picks like this wrong every week means that the Bears take it personally and come out as fired up as they did tonight in a dominant 29-13 victory over the Colts, I’ll gladly get smashed in my parlay picks all year.  Between the resuscitation of the Bears defense, the emergence of Matt Forte, the Illini putting the hammer down on Eastern Illinois after a shaky first quarter, the White Sox taking two out of three from arguably the best team in baseball in the Angels (while the Carlos Quentin situation is a bit scary right now, let’s try to take a positive outlook), and the Twins finally relenting to give the Sox some breathing room in the AL Central, this is one of the best sports weekends in the Frank the Tank household in a very long time.  Let’s just keep this up!

(Image from Chicago Tribune)

Bearly Excited and Frank the Tank’s NFL Football Parlay – 9/5/2008

On By Frank the TankIn Big Ten, Chicago Bears, Illinois Fighting Illini, NFL Football, Sports2 Comments

What a difference a year makes – at this point last September, I had visions of a Bears team on the ascent to another Super Bowl run while hoping for a Motor City Bowl appearance for Illinois.  It turned out that I got a listless Bears team but an Illini trip to the Rose Bowl.  For the 30th season out of my 30 years on this Earth, the football gods refused to allow me to enjoy both my Saturdays and Sundays in a single year.  With the expectations for my respective football teams suddenly reversed along with a stellar baseball pennant race on both sides of Chicago, it has honestly been tough for me to get geared up for the Bears.  Kyle Orton is the starting quarterback by default, the running back situation is a complete unknown and the offensive line probably can’t open up holes anyway, the defense could be still solid yet Tommie Harris and other starters are either banged up or aging quickly, I’m horrified that Ron Turner is going to have Devin Hester run a slant pattern in the middle of the field that results in our one true scoring threat getting his legs crushed by some random safety looking to make a name for himself… these are issues that are just off the top of my head at this point.  Like the Chicago sucker that I always am, though, I’ll put on my Walter Payton jersey on Sunday and watch every moment of what will likely be a mashing at the hands of the Colts.  Well, at least I’m running three separate fantasy teams this season (yes, I have a gambling problem).  Following the form of the college football parlay, here are my three picks (including the Bears game) on the NFL side this week (home teams in CAPS):

(1) GREEN BAY PACKERS (-2 1/2) over Minnesota Vikings – I saw this line and quite honestly was perplexed with the love that the Vikings seem to be receiving from the football pundit class.  Granted, Adrian Peterson could have a breakout session on Monday Night Football at Lambeau Field the same way Randy Moss did many moons ago (no pun intended).  Still, the Vikings have Tavaris Jackson at quarterback – ’nuff said.  I’ll take the potential suckitude that I don’t know in Aaron Rodgers than the absolute suckitude that I do know on the purple side of the ball, especially when the game is in Green Bay.

(2) PITTSBURGH STEELERS (-6 1/2) over Houston Texans – The Rashard Mendenhall Era begins in the Steel City.  I don’t really care that the Texans are the sexy turnaround pick of the year (I seem to recall that the recent trendy picks of the ’06 Cardinals and ’07 49ers didn’t make anyone forget ’85 Bears).  The Steelers have one of the best home field advantages in the NFL, so my rule is if they are anything less than a touchdown favorite at home (unless they’re playing New England), I’ll give the points all day.

(3) INDIANAPOLIS COLTS (-9 1/2) over Chicago Bears – I hate this, but what can I reasonably do?  Even if Peyton Manning comes out there with a cast set in concrete, the sheer emotion of the Colts opening up a new stadium combined with the general ineptitude of the Bears in nearly all facets of the game of football leads me to no other choice.  I hope that I’m very wrong here, but this feels like a two touchdown loss for the Bears to me.

So, it looks like I’m taking all the points for college football on Saturday and giving all the points for the NFL on Sunday.  Be sure to enjoy a plethora of sports this weekend and especially all of the football.  Go White Sox! Go Illini! Go Bears!

(Image from Chicago Tribune)

Arch Rivalry Rundown and Frank the Tank’s College Football Parlay – 9/4/2008

On By Frank the TankIn Big Ten, College Football, Illinois Fighting Illini1 Comment

With week one of the college football season in the books, there are a few conference-wide trends: the Big East looks bad, the ACC looks worse, and the jury is still out on how the Big Ten is going to look at the top.  Illinois lost to a simply better Missouri team, which wasn’t a surprise, but at least hung in well enough to justify the Illini staying in the top 25 in both polls, which was personally a pleasant surprise (and in the end, fair considering that Illinois was playing a team over 10 spots ahead of them in the polls going into the game).  The two main concerns coming out of the game for Illinois were the horrendous lack of tackling, which resulted in roughly 8,000 YAC for Mizzou (and Chase Daniel shred the defense overall) and the completely dead running game in the wake of the loss of Rashard Mendenhall to the NFL.  At least the running situation was mitigated by the fact that Juice Williams had a banner day stats-wise and nailed more accurate passes than ever before.  Mizzou practically stacked eight guys in the box the entire game to take away the Illini running “attack”, which allowed Juice to find some mind-boggling wide-open receivers downfield on a number of occasions.  Hopefully, the fact that Juice burned a pretty solid Missouri defense with his arm will make future opponents think twice in terms of stacking the line, which would open back up the Illini running game.  There really isn’t an excuse for the sloppy tackling, though.  The one bright spot on defense was the coverage ability of Vontae Davis – if he continues playing like he did this past week, he’s going to be taken very high in the first round by an NFL team in the near future.

There aren’t any odds available on the Illinois – Eastern Illinois since it involves a Division 1-AA team (I will continue to refuse to use the FBS/FCS monikers), so that game won’t be part of the parlay this week.  However, I’ll throw out a prediction that Illinois will win by at least 24 points.  On to this week’s college football picks from the worst slate of games of the year that features a dangerous number of spreads of 20 points or more (home teams in CAPS):

(1) Miami (+21 1/2) over FLORIDA – When the marquee game of the weekend features a 21 1/2 point spread, that means it’s a pretty bad football Saturday.  (It will all be made up next week, though, with Ohio State – USC.) I know that the Hurricanes were brutal last season, they have a bunch of freshmen playing, and Tim Tebow has a Zen-like hold on Erin Andrews.  However, have the mighty Canes fallen so far that they would be over three touchdown underdogs to the Gators in the revival of a once-heated rivalry?  I think not – I’m taking Miami with the points.

(2) CENTRAL FLORIDA (+14) over South Florida – Staying in the Sunshine State, I’m selling off USF stock after a couple of seasons of outsized returns.  This is one of those games that means a whole lot more to UCF (who believes they were just as worthy of a Big East invitation as USF) and it’s on their home field, so I’m taking the points again.

(3) EAST CAROLINA (+8) over West Virginia – Here’s a true home game for East Carolina against a top ten team one week after upsetting Virginia Tech in Charlotte.  At the same time, one of the few items that I have been consistently correct on through the years is knowing that West Virginia finds a way to stumble every season even though there is always a contingent of pundits that believes the Mountaineers will back into the national championship game since they always have a schedule where they could theoretically run the table on paper.  I’m not calling a straight-up upset here for ECU (and I’m sure WVU is on notice after VT stumbled last weekend), but it looks like I’m taking the points across the board on this week’s parlay.

The NFL parlay picks come tomorrow.

Frank the Tank’s College Football Parlay Record
Last Week: 2-1
Illini Games for the Season: 0-1
Overall Season: 2-1

(Image from Chicago Tribune)

Frank the Tank’s Football Parlay – 8/29/2008

On By Frank the TankIn Big Ten, College Football, Illinois Fighting Illini2 Comments

College football season began in earnest last night, which means that it’s time for me to start making foolish predictions again that you all will make fun of by Monday.  This year, we’re kicking the predictions up to another level with a weekly parlay, which is essentially an experiment to show how much money I would lose if I went to Vegas every weekend.  I’ll pick 3 college games (always including the Illinois game) and, once the pro season starts, 3 NFL games (always including the Bears game) each week against the Friday morning spread shown on Yahoo! Sports.  The level of analysis every week will solely depend upon how much time I have to write that particular post (and in the case of this week, with little to go on other than gut feelings with the first games of the season, this blog’s credo to be “entirely logical” will go out the window).  So, as we concurrently celebrate Chicago’s exorcism of Jay Mariotti, let the season of gratuitous pictures of Ron Zook begin (home teams in CAPS):

(1) CALIFORNIA (-5) over Michigan State – This pick is less about any confidence in Cal and more that I will never trust Michigan State any farther than I can throw Sparty’s costume.  Taking Utah with 3 points over Michigan was enticing, but despite last year’s Appalachian State debacle, you bet against the Wolverines in the Big House at your own peril.

(2) Alabama (+4 1/2) over Clemson (neutral site game at Atlanta) – The money has obviously been going toward ‘Bama since the line is rolling in the Tide’s direction (no pun intended) and I think it makes sense.  The Georgia Dome crowd is probably going to tilt to the Alabama side and Clemson can’t help but screwing itself over within the first couple weeks of the season (particularly when you consider the ridiculously high expectations this season for a program that has largely done jackshit).  Therefore, I like Alabama with the points.  The most powerful coach in sports has to earn his keep somehow.

(3) Illinois (+9) over Missouri (neutral site game at St. Louis) – Alright, so all of you think this is a homer pick, particularly when Mizzou is coming back with its team from last year largely intact and Chase Daniel is leading an offensive attack with a physique that rivals our favorite neckbearded quarterback.  But seriously – a 9-point spread for a matchup that a year ago resulted in Mizzou squeaking out a 40-34 win with Juice Williams getting knocked out of the game in the first quarter?  (I’ll just ignore the fact that I have no clue what our running game will look like without Rashard Mendenhall, but Juice himself can run like he’s avoiding the wrath of Amy Winehouse.  Right?  Right???)  I’m not arguing that Illinois is better than Missouri this year or that the Illini will win (even though I very much hope that will be the case), but this high of a point spread for two ranked teams at a neutral site is suspect to me.  So, take the points and GO ILLINI!

(On a side note, please pour out some Cris for the passing of the Metra bar car today.  The long commute that I once had when I lived in Libertyville felt a lot shorter in the bar car – I was hoping this concept would expand to the Burlington Northern line to Naperville as opposed to being entirely eradicated.  R.I.P. to the “train friends” that were easily made during rush hour.)

(Image from Deadspin)

The Neckbeard is Our Quarterback

On By Frank the TankIn Chicago Bears, NFL Football, Sports4 Comments

The interweb is aflutter with the buzz of Lovie Smith officially naming Kyle Orton as the Bears starting quarterback. I’m not sure whether it’s more amazing that the Bears didn’t bother looking at any other viable options at the QB position during the offseason or that the sports blogging community now follows the travails of such a mediocre player with a Rachel Nichols-on-Brett Favre-like zeal. This is in direct contrast to the Chicago media, where the general attitude is “Caleb Hanie: Why the fuck not?”

It’s interesting to look back on this post from this blog’s infancy, written at a time when the respective places of Rex Grossman and Kyle Orton in Bears fans’ hearts were completely reversed from where they are today. Of course, it’s maddening that I wrote that post nearly three years ago and barely a thing has changed with the Bears offense. I sent this message to Minneapolis Red Sox a couple of weeks ago: “I’m about 90% sure that I am going to end up writing a rant about the Bears offense after week one and then could copy and paste it for all of the other games for the rest of the season (which would cause me to drive full speed into Lake Michigan by the end of December).” Thinking about this further, the fact of the matter is that I’ve been writing the same rant about the Bears offense for three straight seasons.

As bad as the Bears offense might be with either the Neckbeard or Sexy Rexy, I’ll give Jerry Angelo credit for not heeding to the misguided calls to bring in the recently released Chad Pennington. Any Bears fan that advocated going down that path has obviously not seen him play. I had the unfortunate circumstance of following Pennington as a member of one of my fantasy teams a couple of years ago, where he achieved the dubious feat of scoring fewer points than both my kicker and tight end combined. It would have been more financially prudent for me to take a couple of Benjamins and use them as kindling to make some S’mores than to have paid my league entry fee that year. Essentially, Pennington is a higher rent and more fragile version of Orton, which is to say that Chad is nothing more than Brian Griese’s redneck twin.

So, it’s back to the Neckbeard again. With the Bears offensive line suffering from more pockmarks than Edward James Olmos and Orton having looked a bit more polished at the end of last season compared to his rookie year (which is kind of like saying that Ford just put some airbags into a Pinto to make it safer – that’s nice and all, but airbags don’t do much to prevent you from burning to death), the Jack Daniels-guzzling game manager might not be much of a quarterback, but he’s definitely our quarterback.

(Image from Deadspin)

How to Kill a Newspaper

On By Frank the TankIn Chicago Cubs, Major League Baseball, News, Sports7 Comments

Even though I’ve only just hit 30 years old, in the media world I’m considered to be a dinosaur. You see, I’m part of the increasingly rare tribe that actually reads newspapers – and I don’t mean just online (although I have the New York Times and Washington Post websites open pretty much all day), but physical newspapers that come to my doorstep every morning. Part of this is a function of riding the train into work, so I have time to pore through the Wall Street Journal and the Chicago Tribune on a daily basis. However, there are also benefits that you get with a physical newspaper in contrast to browsing online – you’re more likely to encounter stories that are outside of your normal reading agenda and I’m perfectly content spending an entire Sunday with the fat weekend edition of the paper.

That being said, while most of the world has been focused on Sam Zell’s quest to sell the Chicago Cubs at the maximum price (and nearly tax-free, no less) with Mark Cuban in the mix, his new plan for changing the newspapers at Tribune Company is particularly disconcerting and may have a more lasting impact on life in Chicago. (The Cubs have long been a marquee baseball franchise with deep pockets and a high payroll, which will continue no matter who the next owner might be.) The plan is reduce staff and close bureaus to slash costs and redesign the Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, and other Tribune Company newspapers to make them more in tune with what focus groups supposedly say they want, which are more charts, colorful graphics, and shorter stories. This essentially means that Zell is looking to make the Tribune and its sister papers look like USA Today.

The problem, though, is that he is advocating what we call in the legal world “form over substance” – that is, switching things around on a page but not really changing anything meaningful. There are really only three newspapers in the United States that have been able to weather the erosion of paper circulation in this country over the past three decades: the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and USA Today. The Journal and Times have made their mark by taking the high road of in-depth investigative reporting and a commitment to resources both here and abroad. On the other hand, USA Today has famously gone after the lowest common denominator as the “McPaper” with lots of charts and graphics. One would think that more newspapers that try to make turnarounds would try to emulate the Journal and the Times, not just because of some amorphous ideal of high journalistic standards, but rather that they are able to charge a premium to advertisers because they draw readers with exceptionally high levels of income and education. This means longer-term revenue streams that are less susceptible to economic downturns.

Certainly, the Tribune has long positioned itself as one of the elite metropolitan papers in the country. (Let’s contrast this with the Chicago Sun-Times, which has lately been putting out lots of hard-hitting stories, including this one referenced on the front page a couple of weeks ago. On a related note, I think all red-blooded American males can agree with this viewpoint.) Yet, every single story that I have ever seen about newspapers getting overhauled show owners going the USA Today route of slimming the paper down for the supposed masses. This occurs even though I have never met anyone that actually has a subscription to USA Today – it’s a paper that’s largely provided for free to travelers staying in hotels. So, Sam Zell and a whole lot of other newspaper owners appear to believe that the path to success for local papers that depend on hometown buyers and subscribers is to emulate a model that has proven profitable for a publication that is passed out free to people while they are away from their home markets. I have worked with Zell’s old REITs before and believe that he is as shrewd of a businessman as anyone, but his approach to the Tribune Company is showing that real estate investment skills aren’t necessarily transferable to the media world.

Here’s the mistake that nearly every newspaper owner in the country is making when they are trying to attract the elusive Generations Y and Z: they equate short attention spans with smaller papers containing fewer stories about substantive national and international issues and more blurbs about Hollywood. This is a ridiculous notion since when you take a look at the top 100 websites in the United States by numbers of visitors, you won’t see USA Today, Entertainment Weekly, TMZ.com, People, or any site focused on celebrity news on the list. However, the New York Times, BBC, and Washington Post websites are all on there. People over 30 fail to understand that people under 30 are the most media-savvy consumers anywhere and can instantly identify fluff versus well-written stories. While young people certainly like their junk food stories about the latest travails of Brittany Spears and Lindsay Lohan along with snarky commentary from a slew of blogs and other media sources, they also crave substance and they will turn to media sources that provide them with that. Even if you grant that physical newspapers are eventually going to go extinct and media companies should focus on the web, the success of the Times and the Post websites ought to be an indicator that going for the high-end of journalistic scale is a lot more successful in drawing readers (and the advertisers that pay for such readers) either online or offline than a bunch of cost-cutting measures and flashy graphics.

So, as a Generation Y guy whose main complaint about today’s Tribune is that it has introduced too many empty journalistic calories (the What’s Your Problem? feature is more suited to a community flyer as opposed to the top paper in the nation’s third-largest media market that features multiple Pulitzer Prize winners, while the Trib’s Starbucks fetish has been well-documented), the path to long-term survival in the newspaper industry, whether it’s with ink and paper or on the web, is all about substance over form as opposed to the other way around.

(Note: The Online NewsHour has some excellent analysis of the Tribune Company’s proposed moves that largely reiterates what I have stated above. For an alternate viewpoint, the Recovering Journalist takes the Tribune Company employees that are protesting Sam Zell’s moves to task in this post. This is an interesting take, particularly for a former journalist. I agree with the notion that the newspaper industry needs to undergo drastic changes, but Zell’s proposed moves aren’t necessarily the right moves to make.)

(Image from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University)