Sports New Years Resolutions 2011

Quick hit NFL picks for the week before getting to brass tacks and whatever…

Ravens +3.5 at Pittsburgh – Because these games are always close and the Ravens are the 2nd best team left.

Pats -8.5 vs. Jets – Because Mark Sanchez sucks even when he’s not injured (and he’s probably injured) and Belichick is going to run this up if he gets a chance.

Bears -10 vs. Seattle – Because the Bears are finally running the ball and not leaving Cutler back there to get crushed every play.

Falcons -2.5 vs. Green Bay – Because I hope it goes the other way (reverse jinx), Green Bay is overvalued, and Atlanta is tough at home. Moving on…

Welcome, welcome to the 2nd 2nd Annual Post here at Logical Betting, Sports New Year’s Resolutions! Believe it or not, I have an opinion on things that need to change in our beloved sports world, and because I know you’re dying to hear them, we bring them to you LIVE today. So take notes and email, call, and fax your Congresspeople and tell them to demand the following changes immediately. Think they’re too busy? Have you not been paying attention the last 10 years? Brought to you unofficially today by Detroit 1-8-7, a kick ass show I am catching up on DVR as we speak, so to speak.

1. Major League Baseball – Starting with an easy and obvious. Baseball is doing quite well for itself, actually, thanks in part to the NHL being non-existent (sigh…), the NBA being diluted, and NASCAR popularity diving fast. But it’s mostly in part to good athletes and (generally) good baseball. We addressed the slowness factor last year, but let’s go with the clichéd request this year: institute more replay. Here is the LB suggestion:

- Keep review of homeruns. Add review of fair/foul calls in the same way homeruns are done and/or have a booth in MLB headquarters (ala the NHL) and have them buzz down when they want to review the call. No challenges by managers or anything. All reviews done at MLB HQ. I would not review safe/out calls, much to mine and Armando Gallaraga’s dismay, only because I think we’d be there all day and I think we should preserve some human element to the game, for tradition’s sake.

See how simple? Your welcome. Good work overall, MLB, you guys are looking strong. Onward.

2. NFL – Another league raking in cash and popularity. Not much to change here, really. They should resolve not to lock out, and I think that’s a given, so I have another plea: Don’t expand to 18 games. Not for the competitive piece, mind you, and not for player safety. One reason: Fantasy Football! C’mon, you’re going to torture us for two more weeks??? It’s hard enough watching games and trying not to root for players or outcomes for like 14-16 weeks, but two more??? Ugh. We’d have to move up our drafts, start researching in July… Chances are we’re going to 18, but just getting that out there. This will definitely not stop me from playing fantasy, for the record, which is a relief to my buddies who get me every year, even though My Hero and I were 2 and 3 in points this year, and missed the playoffs in a 10 team league. That was for you, ZWR, if you’re reading.

3. NBA – Going a little unconventional here, but this is my simple advice: Lock out. The system is broken, fix it. It’s not good when you’re basically punished for remaining competitive enough to make the playoffs. You have to completely tank it and/or take on huge contracts for bad players to start to rebuild at all. A few suggestions, some of which are being kicked around in bargaining… which is why they’ll probably lock out.

- Shorten length of contracts, no more than 4 years with a 5th year option.

- No more than 2 year guaranteed on any contract.

- Implement NFL age limit rules – minimum three years college before entering NBA. Reduces risk of bad draft picks by bad teams, thus giving them the chance to get competitive again.

- Increase the percentage difference in contracts for trades. Right now, it’s in the 10-15% range, if you increase it, you can increase trades and give teams a chance to rebuild.

- Create a hard salary cap, but decrease the amount teams must spend in order to accommodate the above increase in trades and ability to sign multiple free agents. Increase total cap to allow for increased spending.

Not a lot of people follow the NBA anymore, and I think they should look at contraction, too. I don’t think it’s gonna happen, but just throwing it out there. Okay, since most of you aren’t big NBA folk, other than the Pistons and Sixers, who both stink, so we’ll move on.

4. NHL – We’re going to go into more depth with the NHL again, like we did last year, but here’s a quick to do list for them until then.

- Fire Gary Bettman. Duh.

- Contract 2 teams. Now. Midseason. Who cares? Refund tickets. Whatever it takes. Grab headlines. Do it the week after the Super Bowl.

- Take out a map of North America. Starting at San Jose, take a black sharpie draw a line down around Denver, then down around St. Louis, go straight back up to Chicago, cross Northern Ohio, dip down just west of Pittsburgh, loop under Washington, DC, go east until you hit the Atlantic Ocean, then go straight up the East Coast until you hit the northern border of Canada.

- After the season, contract and/or relocate any team located below that line. List of acceptable relocations: Hamilton, Ontario; Toronto (2nd team); Winnipeg; Hartford; Minneapolis (2nd team, only if it’s the Stars).

Once that’s done, come back to Logical Betting, read last year’s NHL posts, then read this year’s NHL post. Hire JB as commissioner, and ZWR as 2nd in command in charge of marketing. Sit back, enjoy.

5. NCAA Football/Basketball – I think we all know how I feel about the BCS by now, and I’m 100% against expanding the NCAA tourney as well, and I won’t get into detail beyond the fact we don’t need another round of games to find out why those 32 teams shouldn’t have made the field. Instead, I’m asking the NCAA to call a press conference and read the following letter. Go ahead and copy/paste it, I’m not suing.

“Thank you all for coming. We hope you enjoyed the bowl season and the traditions of legendary games like the Beef O’Brady’s St. Petersburg Bowl. We’re looking forward to an expanded NCAA tournament, adding 32 deserving teams to the most dramatic three weeks in sports, where we crown a true national champion.

We’re here to offer our apologies for believing that you, the sports fan, is dumb enough to fall for our tricks. We’re not stupid, we know these two systems contradict each other. We know claiming academic integrity and tradition in football makes no sense in light of expanding the NCAA tournament. We know that having tournaments for Division 2 and Division 3 football makes it look like we care about those kids' educations less. It’s tough coming up with excuses for what we do. Trust me, we pay a lot of smart people to come up with this stuff, and it’s the best we have. To be honest, this is about making money. Really, it is. But we have good reasons: we can deficit fund sports and scholarships for thousands of athletes, upgrade facilities all over campus, and provide a strong, genuine sense of community and pride in schools that leads to further giving from alumni, which leads to better universities.

But you gotta realize, people don’t buy that touchy feely truth. We gotta come up with a different “truth,” the one we try and push on you every time we make a money-grabbing decision. Today, we announce that the lies stop. We will be honest about all our decisions from here in, even when it involves just trying to make more cash. Starting today, if we’re just going for more cash, ala the expanded NCAA tournament and pushing for 40 bowl games, we’ll be up front about it. Thank you for bearing with us for so long. We look forward to a continued strong relationship with our fans and the great universities of the United States.

In that vein, we would like to announce that, inspired by the Bears/Vikings Monday night game a few weeks ago, we will be playing the Bass Pro Shops Minnesota Bowl, held in TCF Bank Stadium on January 9th at noon. It will feature the 4th place team from the Sun Belt taking on the 9th place team from the Big Ten. Congratulations to both conferences and the citizens of Minneapolis. This will truly add to the competitive traditions of the bowl season.”

There you have it. Other than the NHL, completely doable. That trainwreck… well, we’ll get there, possibly with accompanying podcasts from JB (if he can keep it clean… not likely, but we’ll try) and my cousin, who is requesting air time. Risky business. Alright, everyone, comments and suggestions on the blog or email to me. Thanks for reading. Hasta.