It has been a long, long time since one of these Armchair Quarterback columns has been written by yours truly. But with my friend and colleague Steve Brownlee on the bench for a bit, I was happy to step up to fill in. Steve had bypass surgery earlier this week and will be recuperating for at ...
There’s something special about prep sports. When reporters head to journalism school, they usually have ideas in mind on where they want to end up and what sports they want to cover. Most want to cover the professional teams and that’s understandable. NFL, NBA, NHL and MLB reporters ...
There’s something special about prep sports. When reporters head to journalism school, they usually have ideas in mind on where they want to end up and what sports they want to cover. Most want to cover the professional teams and that’s understandable. NFL, NBA, NHL and MLB reporters ...
At the beginning of this month, I commented in this space about coaches going for two-point conversions to win games when they could settle for a single extra point and keep games going. There was an example on Sunday morning in London that’s too irresistible to talk about. But I promise ...
The National Hockey League has been marketing the idea that “Hockey is for Everyone” for awhile now and it’s a good message to send. No matter what race, gender, religion, age or sexual orientation you are, there’s always a place for you at the rink and on the ice. Unfortunately, ...
The National Hockey League has been marketing the idea that “Hockey is for Everyone” for awhile now and it’s a good message to send. No matter what race, gender, religion, age or sexual orientation you are, there’s always a place for you at the rink and on the ice. Unfortunately, that ...
The NFC North right now would be a dream come true for the late Commissioner Pete Rozelle. The Green Bay Packers’ and Detroit Lions’ division is a model for whatever everyone said he espoused — parity. Reading online from one of his contemporaries, he was said to not like that term, ...
We’ve all seen some truly awful athletic performances over the years. Whether it’s on the field, the court or the ice, there are some teams that are just mind-boggling to watch on television because of their sheer incompetence. Some teams may be cursed more than others with this issue, ...
I understand when the NFL develops rules that have unintended consequences. But what I fail to get is why it takes them five years to fix them. The rules defining what a catch were debated, argued and criticized for multiple seasons until the league finally addressed it this past ...
Egos can be difficult to deal with. Most of us have healthy ones, while others have enormous ones that are blatantly obvious. When you think of Kanye West, Terrell Owens, Kobe Bryant or Jerry Jones, some might see greatness, but more will see them as what they truly are — people who may ...
Who’s afraid of a liddle-biddy tie? Apparently, a number of football coaches are. What is it with this rash of going for two-point conversions late in games or in overtime and going for it on risky fourth downs lately? High school football coaches at Escanaba and Kingsford have done it ...
A common phrase we’ve heard as sports fans is that patience is a virtue, that waiting for something without getting upset or angry is something that we all should aspire to do. Well, for Detroit Red Wings fans, that could be a difficult task this season as all signs are pointing to be a long ...
I heard what sounded like a “throwaway” line by a former NFL player — didn’t catch at the time who it was — on Sunday making comments on one of that day’s upsets: “It’s just about impossible to get ‘up’ for every game,” he said. A simple line, but got me thinking ...
That you can’t go home again is a conclusion that we all eventually come to in our lives. Yes, you can physically go back to your home city or your old house, but it’s not going to be like you remembered. In all likelihood, your friends will have moved away, your favorite hangouts ...
Here’s today’s quick quiz: Name the most impressive overtime victory after two weeks of the NFL regular season. Scratchin’ your head? Are you stumped yet? OK, I’ll tell you. You’re making it up if you have an answer, because this is a trick question — no team has won an OT game ...
The state of football is awful in the state of Michigan. If you look at all of the major programs, professional and college, around the state, you’ll be hard-pressed to find something positive to say about what is going on. Let’s start off with the Detroit Lions. What are some words to ...
So did you enjoy Week 3 of the preseason last weekend? Oh, it wasn’t? It sure looked like it. A lot of talk in August’s preseason was that teams weren’t going to take a chance and play important players and risk injury. OK, fine and dandy, but the reason Week 3 has always been ...
College football season has begun and it’s not off to a great start. As I mentioned in this space last week, the sport is groaning under a multitude of scandals, most glaringly at Ohio State and Maryland where physical and emotional abuse is something that can’t be shrugged off or ...
It felt like fall swept in Tuesday when everyone went back to school. It felt even more like it Wednesday when all that rain and those cooler temperatures came crashing in. But it will really feel like the green leaves are ready to change colors tonight when we all tune in to the first ...
College football is a wasteland of rancid sludge right now. Day by day, it seems like there’s a new scandal with an NCAA Division I program. It used to be just financial corruption like the infamous SMU violations in the 1980s, where they had current players on a secret payroll and bribed ...