Blog - Day 74

By my count, its been 74 days since we started the blog.

Facts:

He cannot view the website at work
He has internet at home
He started at a new job recently
He is married and has a live in brother
He is coaching some type of sport (I assume)
He played fantasy football
He has a dog that is just a few years old
He was watching every episode of 24 last time I saw him

So based on the above, does Rotz really have an excuse? Using math and assuming Rotz goes to one website per 10 days, I think its safe to say Rotz has snubbed the blog over seven times.

Telemundo...

Check out the dude over her right shoulder...

I'm sure he's living it up. I bet he has the SB shuffle as his ringtone. Uggh.

Go Peyton.

http://dev.nwherald.com/superbowlblog/index.php

Badger Basketball How the Team was Built.

In leiu of the success, lets reflect on the past members of the team...
(last year on team)

2005-2006 Ray Nixon
2004-2005 Mike Wilkinson, Clayton Hansen, Zach Morley, Boo Wade, Sharif Chambliss, Andreas Helmigk
2003-2004 Devin Harris, Freddie Owens, Ike Ukawaba, Dave Mader
2002-2003 Kirk Penney
2001-2002 Charlie Wills, Travon Davis
2000-2001 Mike Kelley, Roy Boone, Mark Vershaw, Andy Kowske, Mo Linton, Brad Soderberg
1999-2000 Jon Bryant, Duany Duany, Dick Bennett
1998-1999 Sean Mason, Ty Calderwood, Hennssy Auriantal, David Burkemper

All Tournament teams.

This is obviously an unprecedented run in Badger hoop history. I think it's a fun list.

NFC Home Field Advantage - Where the Winners Are!

After last weeks analysis, I decided to see how the NFC does in playoff games regarding home field advantage. I went back to the 2000 season and was happy to see the round where home-field advantage is the most effective is the divisional round. Here are the statistics to support my findings:

Wild Card Home Field Effectiveness: (9/14 appearances for 64.29%)
(5 home-field advantage losers in wild-card round of NFC since 2000)

• 2002 Season: Green Bay Packers losing at home to the Atlanta Falcons
• 2004 Season: Green Bay Packers losing at home to the Minnesota Vikings
• 2004 Season: Seattle Seahawks losing at home to the St. Louis Rams
• 2005 Season: Tampa Bay Buccaneers losing at home to the Washington Redskins
• 2005 Season: New York Giants losing at home to the Carolina Panthers

Divisional Round Home Field Effectiveness: (11/14 appearances for 78.57%)
(3 home-field advantage losers in divisional round of NFC since 2000)

• 2001 Season: Chicago Bears losing at home to the Philadelphia Eagles
• 2003 Season: St. Louis Rams losing at home to the Carolina Panthers
• 2005 Season: Chicago Bears losing at home to the Carolina Panthers

All of the home-field advantage losses in this round over the past seven years involve either the Chicago Bears hosting or the Carolina Panthers playing on the road. This round is so important for home-field advantage in the NFC during the past 11 seasons, as the #1 seed has never lost in the divisional round. These three home field advantage losses listed above are actually the only three to have happened in the last 11 seasons.

Conference Championship Round Home Field Effectiveness: (5/7 appearance for 71.43%)
(2 home-field advantage losers in championship round of NFC since 2000)

• 2002 Season: Philadelphia Eagles losing at home to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers
• 2003 Season: Philadelphia Eagles losing at home to the Carolina Panthers

Each round seems to have one team that really does not fair well with home field advantage in the NFC. The wild-card round was not kind to Mike Sherman as the Packers head coach during his tenure, only winning two of his four home field advantage appearances. The divisional round was not kind to the Chicago Bears and I was surprised this year that Chicago was able to finally get past their divisional round demons. The conference championship round was the nemesis of the Philadelphia Eagles as they went to four straight championship games, hosted three of them and only won one of those three games in which they held home field advantage to get to the Super Bowl. The other major comparison is that the lowest seed to ever reach the Super Bowl in the past 11 season for the NFC was the Carolina Panthers (#3) in 2003 and in the AFC a team seeded #3 or lower has made it five times in the same timeframe.

Why did I waste the time?

Broncos/Falcons
Giants/Ravens
Bucs/Raiders
Steelers/Seahawks

Listed above are what I consider the four of the biggest wastes of my time. They will be trumped by Bears/Colts. Honestly, who do you pull for? I sure don't know. Its funny, when I was compiling this list, I thought I remembered this awesome game between the Rams and Titans, but I could not find any record of them playing in a big game.

Here's better stuff to do instead of watching this years Superbowl:

-Watch Favre 4 Ever 4 times
-Watch Rocky, Rocky 2, and Rocky 4
-Read the profiles of the guys that are draft eligible for the 2007 Draft
-Play about 10 games of FIFA 2007 on PS2
-Take a nap and then if the Bears win, watch the looting on WGN
-Take a nap and then if the Bears lose, watch the looting on WGN
-Pass two kidney stones

Ron Mexico

For more information here...http://ronmexico.kainalopallo.com/

Rotz- Raymond Bermuda
Tim - Gary Arizona
Pelsi- Nikko Botswana
Cheek -Adonis Afghanistan
Egan - Sam Senegal

AFC Home Field Advantage - Why Bother?

I decided to do some research after this past weekends NFL playoff games and seeing both the AFC teams that received byes losing their home-field advantage. From there I started thinking that this seems to happen more often than I would think in the AFC, so I went back as far as the 2000 season and was surprised to see the round where home-field advantage is the most effective is the wild card round. Here are the statistics to support my findings:

Wild Card Home Field Effectiveness: (11/14 appearances for 78.57%)

(3 home-field advantage losers in wild-card round of AFC since 2000)

• 2001 Season: Miami Dolphins losing at home to Baltimore Ravens
• 2004 Season: San Diego Chargers losing at home to the New York Jets
• 2005 Season: Cincinnati Bengals losing at home to the Pittsburgh Steelers

Divisional Round Home Field Effectiveness: (9/14 appearances for 64.29%)

(5 home-field advantage losers in divisional round of AFC since 2000)

• 2000 Season: Tennessee Titans losing at home to Baltimore Ravens
• 2003 Season: Kansas City Chiefs losing at home to Indianapolis Colts
• 2005 Season: Indianapolis Colts losing at home to Pittsburgh Steelers
• 2006 Season: Baltimore Ravens losing at home to Indianapolis Colts
• 2006 Season: San Diego Chargers losing at home to New England Patriots

More scary is the fact since the 2003 season, only 50% of the AFC teams with home field advantage in the divisional playoffs round have won their playoffs games. Obviously, it appears home field advantage in the AFC may be overrated!

Conference Championship Round Home Field Effectiveness: (3/7 appearance for 42.86%)

(4 home-field advantage losers in championship round of AFC since 2000)

• 2000 Season: Oakland Raiders losing at home to Baltimore Ravens
• 2001 Season: Pittsburgh Steelers losing at home to New England Patriots
• 2004 Season: Pittsburgh Steelers losing at home to New England Patriots
• 2005 Season: Denver Broncos losing at home to Pittsburgh Steelers

I guess in the AFC, just making the playoffs is good enough as the top teams seem to either play down to their opponents level and lose or some other phenomenon occurs that causes the home teams to rest on the fact they are playing at home and believing the other team will just not show up and play well. I even looked at the number through 11 season (1996) and found the percentages hold up in the AFC and that 4 of the last 11 winners of the AFC have been wild card teams that did not even win their division!

MLB Arbitration is a JOKE

"Outfielder Kevin Mench didn't play well for the Brewers after coming from Texas in the Carlos Lee trade last July, batting only .230 with one homer and 18 RBI in 40 games. But Mench batted .284 with 12 homers and 50 RBI in 87 games with the Rangers before coming to Milwaukee and thus also could net a raise from his $2.8 million salary."

You have to fu(king kidding me? This is why they need to make the arbitration go both ways (i.e. if you suck, you should pay money back). Jenkins and Mench should be paying me to watch them play. Hall made $418,000 last season and Capuano got $450,000. I guess this means they will get at least $10 million each.

Offense, Offense, Offensive Line Coaches

I was just reading through the new Packer promotions, and based on my reconciliation, we have at least three offensive line coaches and we also have an assistant to the Head Coach. I was hoping the assistant to the Head Coach would also be a lineman, so including McCarthy, we could field an entire starting offensive line of coaches, and each starter could have their own personal coach, just like the Bulls a few years ago. Oh well, I guess that's just wishful thinking.

The Unwinnable War?

"I would just like to come out and say that even though General Bonkers made this comment on January 6Th, I would have to completely disagree with him.

This is not an unwinnable war, on String. We need to beef up troop presence. We need to simplify the rules of engagement and we need to really exercise those troops that have more at stake to win this war.

I believe the war isn't over. Even though we continue to fight public opinion and the loss of massive amounts of troops. String is a sketchy enemy. It lays down in the dark of night, re-occupies area's we have cleared and forms militia's at the drop of a single Hussein from the Gallows, to join with it's brethren rope and twine.

Even though General Bonkers and many other high ranking officials and military commanders believe that we need to pull out, and stop this quagmire called the war on String, I believe we can still win. So on with the surge, lets increase troop levels and defeat this enemy."

President Toonces


(please do not believe that this editorial from President Toonces in this Sunday's New York Post in anyway is in line with the political thoughts on the war in Iraq. In no way are the two similar.)