Its Playoff Time! (Casey)

Its coming down to the end of the winter sports in america and the Playoffs are right around the corner. With the NBA season winding down and the NHL playoffs starting tonight its the beginning of some of the most exciting competition you will ever see. Now as most of you know I'm a big football fan and I love the NFL post season as well as the College football Bowl season but there is one set of playoffs in my mind that tops it and its the Stanley Cup Playoffs. The NHL playoffs if you have never seen them before will draw you in and get you hooked faster than any other playoff series. Unlike the NBA and the MLB playoffs the NHL plays almost every night, the intensity is ramped up and its unlike anything you have ever seen. This sports brings in the best of all the things I like to see, hitting, speed, ablility to do things that I could never do, and in some instances fighting. I think one of the more exciting first round games this year is going to be the Pittsburgh Penguins VS the Philadelphia Flyers. These two teams hate each other, in one of the last games of the season there was a big brawl that broke out where even the coaches where yelling at each other. The tension is high and it should be alot of fun to watch. So enjoy the playoffs whether they are the NBA or the NHL they are always a good watch!

I wanna hear from you, what sport has the best playoffs and why;

NBA?

NFL?

NHL?

MLB?

MLS?



Time for the Youth! (Casey)

Last Night the Utah Jazz played the #1 team in the West, 3 nights ago they played the #3 team in the west on there home court, 4 nights ago they played a very young, very hungery team in Golden State, and 6 nights ago they played a team that they are in a fight with to get a playoff spot and guess what, THEY WON THEM ALL. The Jazz over the last 4 games have come out and played like we havent seen them play before (even in February) they played defense, held Kobe to his lowest FG % of the year, and have been playing as a TEAM and there is 1 big reason in my mind why they are doing this good recently and its the YOUNG GUYS ARE GETTING GREAT MINUTES AND CONTRIBUTING. I wanna point out 2 of the many young guys that are playing very well as of late and it should show that playing the young guys and the Jazz getting into the playoffs go hand and hand.

1. The First guy is big man 6'-10" 240 LB Derrick Favors. With the absence of Big Al, Favors has had the opportunity to play more minutes lately and boy has it shown. Over the last 4 games he has averaged 11.5 PPG, 13 Rebounds and played about 27 minutes. The guy is an athletic freak and he is only in his second year. I'm normally not on the same page with Kevin O'Conner in alot of his decisions but getting Favors from the Nets in that trade for D Will was probably, no WAS one of his best moves ever (Sure beats picking Raul Lopez over Tony Parker in the 2001 draft).
2. They other young guy that has really been impressive is Alec Burks. Burks has been getting more playing time with the absense of Raja Bell and has made the most of it. Over the last 4 games Burks has averaged 10.8 PPG and is shooting 9-12 (75%) from the free throw line and is 18-36 (50%) from the court in 26.25 minutes per game. He is not afraid to drive into the paint and take contact. He is very athletic and looks like he is going to make a big impact for the Jazz in years to come.

Now that is only 2 young guys that I'm impressed with but there have been some great preformaces by Gordon Hayward, Enes Kanter and of course your starters in Paul Millsap, Big Al, Devin Harris and yes even CJ Miles has played well. Another person I have been impressed with has been Jamaal Tinsley, when Earl Watson went down the Jazz needed a back up PG and Tinsley has been great. I love watching Earl Watson and want to see him come back and play but the one thing that Tinsley has that Earl does not is the fact that Jamaal is a shooting treat and that make defenses have to guard him. So whether or not the Jazz are going to make a big splash or fall flat on there bellys is still in the air in my mind but one thing is for certin they need to play the young guys more and prepare for the future cause this Jazz team right now has the pieces to be real good!

New places New faces! (Casey)

In the last week we have seen many different professional atheletes changing teams and moving to different locations. The NBA had its trade deadline and Free agency in the NFL is going on strong and with all the moves going on it made me wonder, After the Steelers let Hines Ward go and the Colts cut Peyton Manning who is going to be the next big name superstar to leave his team and play for someone else and I thought of a few more players that in my mind are going to leave;

• The first player i thought of was New York Yankees Shortstop Derek Jeter. Jeter has been with the Yankees since 1995 and his $51 million dollar contract ends after the 2013 year. Over the last few years the 37 year olds batting average has slumped from .334 in 2009 to .297 last year, his slugging precentage over that same time went from .465 to .388 and he is not the same player as he used to be. He has been Mr Yankee forever but if you don't produce you don't stay.
• Another player I see switching teams would be Kobe Bryant! Now hear me out on this Kobe has been a Laker since 1996, he is 33 years old and is still averaging about 29 points per game, but all that said you must remember he has been in the leauge for 15 years and his body has been through a ton. He has also shown lately that he is frusterated with some of the things that Laker management is doing and that the Laker players are not happy with there coach. So if the Lakers again make an early exit out of the playoffs again and continue to struggle and not fix the holes left on the team when the starters sit look for him to start looking around for a new landing spot where he can win another championship.
• The last person I thought of was Drew Brees. He has been in the NFL since 2001 when the Chargers drafted him and has been with the Saints since 2006 and has won a Super Bowl there. He has taken the city by storm and is a great QB but has had a pretty severe labrum injury while playing for the chargers. He has been in contract negotiations with the Saints for a while now and with the big contract that the Broncos just gave Peyton Manning after his injury I can see Drew using that to get all he can but they may not do that. It could be interesting.

So It will be interesting to see who may get cut or let go from there stable team. Life in professional sports is not easy or stable. If you guys can think of anyone that you might think is going to be let go, leave me a comment and let me know who and why!

Great Chant! (Casey)

http://youtu.be/Pa1DJ008t9Y

Now I know that people out there are not soccer fans but there are alot of sports that are missing cool things like this. When I heard this it got me excited to support some RSL Soccer. Check It out and get excited.

Bounty Hunters! (Casey)

So Last week the story broke that the New Orleans Saints defensive Coordinator was paying his players a bounty to knock out or possible injure key players on the opposing team. The amount of money ranged dependent on the severity of the hit or whether or not the person being hit was taken out of the game. Now at first I had no problem with it, I mean football is a violent sport and in my mind a defenses job is to keep the opositions star player from making plays any way possible and if you happened to injure someone in the proccess to get them out of the game it was all part of playing. But then I started thinking about it a little more and it made sense to enforce this NO BOUNTIES RULE and here is why. This Bounty thing is not only something offensive players have to worry about, defensive players are in the same boat. Take for example Eric Berry of the Kansas City Chiefs, in one of the first games of the year he was hit low by Steve Johnson and missed the entire season which in turn affected the Chiefs, at the time Eric Berry thought it was a clean block and thought nothing more of it until now. In a recent tweet Berry is begining to wonder if there was a bounty out on him? Its an interesting thought, you look at the NFL and look at the guys who are injured and it makes you wonder, was Peyton Mannings neck injury a result of players hitting him high, giving his neck an extra tug, trying to knock him out of the game to collect on some money? Was Steve Johnson trying to get an extra pay day by taking out Berry, And to that point what is to stop someone on all our favorite teams from getting taken out by a player trying to earn himself an extra couple thousand dollars? This is not just a Saints issue i can almost guarantee that more teams are doing this than we all think. So in a league that has been so concerned with saftey lately there better be some swift action to stop this before it gets worse! STEP UP ROGER! 

NEW YEAR AND NEW HOPE! (TYLER)

With today being the beginning of spring camp for BYU i got to thinking.... Why am i so excited for Spring Camps, the NFL Combine, and the NFL Draft? Why am i always checking around the web for any news on my teams? How do i so easily forget the last year of football to focus on the present status of my teams?.... Am i football deprived in March? Am i just crazy? The answer is YES to both. Also, i get this renewed hope for the coming year of football.... This is going to be the year that BYU breaks into the BCS.... This is the year that the Raiders are going to get back into the playoffs and contend for/win the Superbowl....... i'm now going to give you all time to laugh at me.......... done?.......... good. Now think about your own respected teams you cheer for..... Are all of your hopes just as high if not higher for your teams than mine are? 

Every year we go through this emotion high/low with our teams... we quit on them in frustration only to come back to their support after a few moments. We bash with other fans on whose team is better. We miserably drop to a low when our teams hit the bottom, or the end of their season. But even with all of the highs/lows of the last season we are firing once again on all cylinders for the coming year just a month after the season is over! This is one of the reasons football is so great! There is always hope that keeps us coming back for more. So here's to the coming up Championship Season for all of us! 

The JAZZ after 30 games. (Tyler)

My assessment of the Jazz after 30 games.

The Jazz have finished 30 games putting their record at 15-15 on the season so far. Let's take a look back at these last 10 games and see how they fared.

1. @Golden State         L 119-101
2. L.A. Lakers             W 96-87
3. @New York            L 99-88
4. @Indiana                 L 104-99
5. Oklahoma City         L 101-87
6. @Memphis              W 98-88
7. @New Orleans        L 86-80
8. @Oklahoma City      L 111-85
9. Washington              W 114-100
10. @Houston               L 101-85

It was a rough 10 games with a couple of good wins (Lakers, @Memphis) but some horrible losses too (@New Orleans, @Golden State) The Jazz lost to the Knicks at the beginning of Linsanity without Carmelo Anthony and Amare Stoudemire. Two losses to Oklahoma City were kinda expected. 

To put it bluntly the Jazz finally hit a lot of road games and couldn't handle it. Whether it's the youth on the team, the scheme from Coach Corbin, or some kind of issue with the player's attitude... this problem needs to get fixed and fast if the Jazz stand any chance to make the playoffs at all. I myself still have hope for the playoffs, however my lofty expectations have dropped for where in the playoffs the Jazz could end up. I have them now only being able to reach the 7th spot in the Western Conference. Looking at the standings, i still think the Jazz can  beat out the likes of Denver, Houston, Memphis, and maybe even Portland to sneak into the playoffs but the team is going to need to perform better on the road to accomplish this, and the Jazz have 7 of their next 10 games on the road.. so we will get to see in short order how they play. Good Luck... and Go Jazz!