Are you kidding me? You take out your starters in a tight game in the fourth quarter. The Jets were +7 in that game and Indy was only up 5 points, so the Jets were already covering the spread. Pulling the headlines almost guaranteed a winning Jets bet. On top of that, there’s almost no justification for pulling starters for the fourth quarter of a game on December 27 when their next playoff game is on January 17 or 18. What would rest the starters in the fourth quarter of a close game besides securing the Jets’ winning bet and infuriating the players? His faces conveyed his intense frustration as he watched his undefeated season go up in flames.

If you had bet on the Colts, it was a terrible bet based on the statistics. In 2009, the Colts haven’t lost on the road, but they are surprisingly a sub-.500 team against the spread at home (that loss sent them to 3-5 on the year). On top of that, it was a good assumption that the ruthless Indianapolis bosses would grab headlines like they did in 2005 when they had the No. 1 seed, only to lose to San Diego in the divisional playoff.

Going into week 16, it’s hard to say where Vegas will draw the line when no one knows who Indy will be playing in that game. You can predict that the Indy reserves will be on the field with a vanilla game against a Buffalo team with their U Hauls full. You can bet the game was level, and Caldwell probably didn’t bet on the Jets either; he simply cheated the gamblers on his own team.

I have decided to write this little pretext to highlight the importance of the financial problems Arsenal is facing and which subsequently affected the team’s performance.

Point: Arsenal’s board led by Peter Hill-Wood and Co has not followed through on its promise to hand over to Wenger and the fans the alleged budget to buy players.

30/08/2008: Hill-Wood says Arsenal have plenty of money to spend and Wenger’s critics should stop telling the Frenchman how to do his job. He said: Everyone tells Arsene how to run the place, but no one is a better judge than him. We have a lot of money and enough to spend.

12/19/08: Arsenal management have made it clear that the funds are available should they wish to spend them next month. In fact, some reports have suggested that Wenger has been urged by the club’s hierarchy to spend money. In his pre-match press conference, the coach reiterated that HE has the final decision on possible reinforcements. “They [the Board] let me do what I want to do,” Wenger said. “I know how much money I can spend and I’ll try to do it wisely.”

12/23/08: Arsène Wenger admits he is more likely to enter the transfer market next month after Cesc Fábregas’ knee injury. “Yes [I am more likely to buy]but we also have internal solutions, so we’re not desperate about that,” Wenger said.

02/01/09: Arsenal chairman Peter Hill-Wood admits manager Arsene Wenger has a limited budget for the January transfer window. “I don’t think there’s a lot of money anywhere,” Hill-Wood told newspapers. “You have to look to the future; in the future, probably not much more money is going to come in.

01/04/09: The Daily Mail reports that Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger is on a collision course with his superiors over the modest transfer budget he has been given this winter. The Frenchman is keen to sign Andrei Arshavin, but Zenit St Petersburg are demanding more than €20m for their star striker, a figure the Gunners have so far been unable to match.

The north London club has always maintained that it will back Wenger to the fullest in the transfer market, although that claim has rarely been tested due to the manager’s low-budget, youth-oriented approach. But now that the former Monaco boss has set his sights on a big-money target, the Emirates board is unwilling to release the funds needed to seal the deal. This is not the first report of friction between Wenger and his bosses to emerge this season. In fact, it has been rumored that the 59-year-old could break his contract with Arsenal to join Real Madrid next summer. That remains the remotest of chances, but if the Gunners fail to secure Champions League qualification this term – they currently sit fifth in the Premier League table – their longtime manager might consider his options. .

May we know where the 50 million pounds that the board has promised us are? Where is the support Wenger was supposedly promised, now that we want a player?

The pros and cons of blended learning depend on whether you are a learning ‘giver’ or a learning ‘receiver’; each group has its own “view” of the advantages and disadvantages, of course, since the groups approach the subject from a very different point of view.

The main beneficiaries are:

1. The learner: the end user of the learning process

2. The employer – the one who provides the learning, either personally or through another, such as a training professional

Let’s look at the pros and cons of each group…

1 Advantages for me as a student

• I can study part of the content when I want
• I can work at my own pace
• I can experience different learning tools
• I can use the internet, which I use a lot at work and at home anyway.
• I like the balance between face to face and individual work.
• I like the variety of approaches.
• I like to have time to explore a topic, do some research, and reflect on the results before I have to give an answer to the trainer.
• I can work on my training when it suits me
• It focuses on solutions instead of focusing on problems.
• I can build a network of allies through group forums
• It keeps me flexible and agile, which is helpful for modeling in my management role.

OBJECTIVE

• I need to be more motivated than if I were in a classroom.
• I must make sure that I do not let distractions in the office interfere with the results of my training program
• I need to meet deadlines set by myself or my guardians and not let other things get in the way.

As a by-product, we could almost say that blended learning gives the student the opportunity to learn new technical skills or to develop self-motivation, time management and focus skills (all important in other roles and other jobs, as these are key transferable skills). .

2 advantages for me as an employer

• I can get my message out to the entire company quickly and easily by using a blended approach
• I can save money on trainers and training days
• I can save money by keeping people on the job and not in training
• I can encourage staff to take their development seriously.
• Motivated and fully developed staff will be more effective
• I can offer and encourage much more accessible forms of learning.
• It’s just a one-time investment for reusable content.
• I have a resource that is easily updated
• I can get training content tailored to meet changing business needs
• There is greater strategic alignment
• More proactive teams can better deal with changing environments
• I can finally build a complete learning organization!

OBJECTIVE

• I should not focus solely on saving; what is the actual cost?
• You may have to make a technology investment in the short term
• I’ll have to make sure we keep up with new developments as technology advances.
• I need to make sure I use the right people to design and deliver blended learning programs that may include upskilling my L&D staff.
• Students may still need face-to-face contact to build relationships
• I need to make sure that training still takes place within working hours as much as possible and that staff are not expected to work outside of normal hours just because they can
• It could represent a very new learning path for our organization and I will have to sell it.
• It means taking training very seriously!

top tip

If you want to introduce blended learning approaches, clarify the pros and cons for you and your company, as well as your learners.

Even though the final game was in Los Angeles, you could almost hear Johnny Most’s voice and see Red Auerbach light his victory cigar as the Boston Celtics completed the biggest season turnaround in NBA history with the widest win in an NBA Finals game. . The storied franchise has finally reclaimed what was once considered its personal property: the Championship crown.

This year, the Celtics will be in a position they haven’t been in in over twenty years. The men in green will take the field as the defending champions and all opponents will try to defeat them in eighty-two regular games and sixteen postseason games. Each one of them will be a show worth seeing and a hard-to-get ticket. The days of empty seats in Boston and on the road are over for the Celtics and fans will have to buy their tickets early if they want to see them live.

Paul Pierce, Ray Allen and, of course, Kevin Garnett will return to the team that now has seventeen NBA titles and each will now face critics who claim they are too old to do it again. With their starting lineup completed by Rajon Rondo and Kendrick Perkins, they now have a battle-tested group and most of their supporting cast is still in place. Posey is gone, but Eddie House, Leon Powe and Sam Cassell are still there. PJ Brown is one of the oldest players in the league, but he proved last year that he can still pull through when needed and Glen “Big Baby” Davis will be a force to be reckoned with.

Can they repeat? If you ask that question in Boston, you’ll get a unanimous “yes.” Around the league, many have doubts. The Lakers will be better, Miami did well in the offseason, and Boston barely beat Cleveland in the playoffs. There are others that seem to be on the rise like Chicago and Atlanta, and perennial powerhouses Detroit and San Antonio can never be ruled out.

Next season will definitely be exciting and the Boston Celtics will be in contention for a title once again. Available tickets will be hard to come by, so if you’re a fan, you’ll really want to get yours today. 2TicketGuys.com has Celtics basketball tickets and all your other NBA favorites available right now. For the best seats, go to:

http://www.2ticketguys.com/Sports.aspx

And here I go again with my daily dose of match analysis which ultimately has me scratching my head and wondering why the Blues didn’t put in such a spirited display of effort when they faced Manchester United two Saturdays ago. ?

Chelsea manager Luis Felipe Scolari must have sighed with relief when Frank Lampard scored the winner during stoppage time that had almost expired. But it was the way he celebrated his goalscoring feat that caught my eye. He ran right up to his manager and hugged him, and then he snowballed into this group hug of grown men wearing blue uniforms, which to me was a guess; that they were refuting claims written by the press that the players were questioning Scolari’s coaching method and turning their backs on him. One can feel the collective feeling of relief in that scene.

Chelsea may be suffering from poor form, but so are Liverpool. If you look at current performance trends, among the Big Four, Manchester United and Arsenal are the teams that are making big leaps and are in great shape right now. United, with their resounding win over the Blues and their numerous 1-0 victories and Arsenal, who have gone seven games without losing. Chelsea can be said to be lucky that some of their slips did not come from EPL games which could be costly for them in the long run. At the moment, the club only has to improve its defense with attention to defending set pieces in upcoming soccer matches. It will be interesting to witness how they perform as their next game next Saturday will be an FA Cup match against Ipswich at Stamford Bridge.

It can be considered bad timing that some of Scolari’s men suffered injuries at the most crucial moment. Joe Cole is out for the season with a torn cruciate ligament in his knee, Deco has a calf strain that may take a few days to heal. I still don’t know about John Terry’s injury. And Didier Drogba? He may not have any injuries right now, but I’m not sure why he doesn’t seem interested in playing soccer right now.

His attacking partnership with Nicolás Anelka isn’t entirely effective because Scolari says he doesn’t have a left winger. So why did he sell Wayne Bridge when the guy can play winger and is a fantastic cross on the ball? It is rumored that the Ivorian striker is not happy with his manager and that his previous boss, who now manages Inter Milan, is interested in signing the striker and ultimately letting go of striker Adriano, who has a history of attitude problems at all the teams you have played. he has played in Scolari says that nothing is going on between him and Drogba. And that every time Drogba is cut from the team, it’s only because he chose to and not for any underlying reason.

I hope Scolari is telling the truth, for the sake of Chelsea Football Club and its avid supporters.

Bradley is finally starting to look like the player we saw last year as spring training winds down. Bradley has been in the major leagues since 2000 and has compiled a career batting average of .280 while driving in nearly 400 runs. The Cubs will be the seventh team Bradley has spent time with in the majors. He has also played for the Expos, Indians, Dodgers, Athletics, Padres, and Rangers. While his numbers don’t seem all that impressive for a guy who’s been in the league for almost ten years, you have to look at what he’s done recently to see what kind of player we really have. Injuries have greatly reduced Bradley’s playing time in the past. He’s only played over 100 games in a season three times in his career.

The market for Bradley this offseason was much smaller than expected for a guy of his level of talent. Many believe Bradley is locker room poison and can wreck a clubhouse. In 2007, while playing for the San Diego Padres, Bradley tore his ACL during an altercation with first base umpire Mike Winters. Winters had alleged that Bradley had thrown his bat at another player earlier in the game and was questioned by Bradley about it after reaching first base in his next at-bat. Winters used profanity towards Bradley, who then had to be restrained by his first base coach from going after Winters. While immobilized, Bradley fell, tore his ACL, ending his season. The Cubs’ front office took these issues seriously and questioned many former teammates who said Bradley was a great teammate.

Bradley is coming off the best season of his career, in which he hit .321 in 115 games and drove in 75 runs. Bradley is currently riding a 10-game hitting streak after going 4-for-4 at the plate on Monday.

So the Day Turkey was not put into stock again after Thanksgiving. The Detroit Lions kept him in shape all weekend and used him to fire head coach Steve Mariucci on Monday. This was not unexpected. The Lions’ record is 4-7, making Mariucci’s final record 15-28. It had been rumored for weeks and the team was playing lifeless, uninspired football. He didn’t seem like a happy camper lately either, though don’t feel too bad for him: His base salary for the next two years is $5.5 million in 2006 and $6 million in 2007.

So how does this relate to sports betting? Teams can get excited and play hard for the new coach when something like this happens. Just a year ago, the Miami Dolphins fired Dave Wannstedt after a 1-8 start. In Game No. 10, the Dolphins were a 9-point dog in Seattle, but they held on and got the coverage in a 24-17 loss. The game botched interim coach Jim Bates’ debut, but Miami held Seattle RB Shaun Alexander to 3.3 ypc, his lowest yards per carry to that point and second-lowest of the season.

In fact, the Dolphins went 3-4 SU/5-2 ATS the rest of the season under Bates after going 1-8 SU, 2-7 ATS under Wannstedt. What can sometimes happen is that the dismissal of a coach eliminates an unhappy situation. The clubhouse mood can change overnight, making practice and game day more enjoyable. The effort is noticeable.

In 1989, the Cincinnati Reds had fired underachieving manager Pete Rose after a string of second-place finishes. They brought in Lou Piniella for the 1990 season and the Reds just won the World Series! Obviously, that wouldn’t have happened with Rose. Two years earlier, the Red Sox were out 9 games at the All-Star break with a talented but underperforming team. They fired John McNamara and went on to go 19-1 under new manager Joe Morgan en route to winning the AL East. Last year, the Astros fired Jimy Williams in the middle of the season, then cheered on Phil Garner and reached the NLCS. And the Marlins won the World Series in 2003 after Jack McKeon replaced Jim Fregosi.

That Miami Dolphins team from a year ago played tough for Jim Bates, winning in San Francisco the next week, losing 20-17 in Denver like an 11+ dog and beating the eventual Super Bowl champion Patriots, 29-28, on Sunday. Monday night. It will be interesting to see how the Lions respond, if at all. Or if other coaches are let go, since there are several NFL coaches still on the bench.

Has any professional soccer team ever fired a coach in the middle of the season with a winning record? If only one. The 1984 Patriots fired Ron Meyer with a 5-4 record and played .500 under Ray Berry, missing the playoffs. They did win though and covered their first game with Berry. We’ll see how relieved, or hopeless, this Lions team really is.

Sometimes we need a break from dating. A “pause” is a break in something that normally has continuity. You may have heard this term in conjunction with TV shows: “The show is on hiatus until filming begins for the next season.” That means the actors and crew will be taking a break until work starts again.

brick wall
So how do you know it’s time to consider a dating hiatus? It’s when you’ve been dating for many months or years and still don’t seem any closer to meeting the right person than when you started. It’s when you’ve been dating a succession of people but nothing of substance is developing with any of them. Are you starting to feel like you’re banging your head against a brick wall? You will feel better if you simply decide to STOP.

You have yourself in a rut. You keep the same things going to meet new people, but every relationship ends and goes nowhere. You are starting to feel so frustrated that it is affecting your relationships with family and friends. You are moody and negative most of the time. You are losing hope of finding someone to love and becoming cynical and sarcastic about your future. Instead of moving forward, you’re going to plummet.

Before you let this mood deteriorate into total depression, there’s one thing you can do to change it: take a break! If you’re on a losing streak and it keeps getting worse instead of better, then do what any smart coach does for a player in that situation. Get out of the game for a while.

break the pattern
When what you’ve been doing just isn’t working, it’s time to stop, break the pattern, and do something different. If you are slipping into a state of misery and frustration, this may be the time when you feel unhappy enough to consider doing some personal growth and spiritual work. Sad but true, most of us don’t take steps to change until the pain of changing is less than the pain of staying the same.

This is the time when you are most motivated to find a connection to God, Spirit, Higher Power, or whatever you call the invisible force that created our world. This is the time when you are most open to learning a new way of thinking and a new set of principles to believe and live by that will put you out of your misery and put you back in charge of your life.

If this is how you are today, don’t beat yourself up for not having found the love relationship you so desire. Even the best boxer in the world sometimes has to go down before he can get back up and start fighting again. Give yourself a break and take a break from the dating scene.

pausing
Once you make up your mind and decide that you are going to take a break from dating, you will immediately start to feel a little better. That’s because you’ve taken control of your life again and stopped looking for someone else to make you feel good. The next time a well-meaning friend asks you who you’re dating, you don’t have to feel like a loser or a second-class citizen because you’re alone. You can just say, “Oh, I’m on hiatus right now. I’ve decided not to date for a while.” It is a choice you have made, not an unwanted situation you find yourself in. You are in control and you feel better!

Now is the time to take that class you’ve been meaning to take, start going to church, find a therapist, counselor, or support group. Read a book or two on spiritual principles, study the Bible or other scriptures that interest you. Go back to your religious roots or explore a different philosophy that intrigues you. Try a yoga, meditation, or dance class. Take the hours and hours you used to spend online on dating sites and invest them in yourself.

Before I met my husband, I took a two-year hiatus and did exactly what I suggest you do. That’s why I know it works. What a relief it was to get out of the “look, look, always look” mentality of most singles. I took out my “singles antenna” that was always on the lookout for any man that might be a possibility. I stopped making decisions about whether to go to any event based on how many single men might be there. I accepted my single status and enjoyed all the good things about it.

making changes
I delved into the universal spiritual principles taught in Unity and Religious Science churches and discovered that it actually had the power to change the way I think and what I believe. I created a whole new life for myself and learned to be happy and complete as a single person. I let the old feelings of “not good enough” fade away and replaced them with believing and knowing that my happiness did not depend on having a partner.

Also, I realized that holding on to resentments from the past can prevent you from attracting good things into your life today. Learning to release bitterness and resentment is a necessary step, but one that many people are not willing to take. If you’re having a hard time finding and keeping a good partner today, chances are some anger about a buried past hurt in you is part of the cause.

You don’t have to “forgive” and pretend that whatever they did wasn’t wrong, but unless you release those angry feelings and stop paying attention to them, you will never be free of their influence. Doing this emotional labor may not be much fun, and you may resent the fact that you have to do it! But if you have the courage, you can find a way, and it will make a world of difference in your next relationship. I can swear by that.

When I was secure in knowing that I am enough and don’t need anyone else to be happy, I was able to go back to dating and attracting a great partner in less than a year. It turns out that the solution to the problem was inside me. Once I released my old resentments and learned to appreciate all the good things in my life, I attracted some really good men into my life. I am now happily married to a man who is a perfect match for me.

This dating hiatus idea may seem too radical and extreme to you right now. However, the more people you date and the more unhappy you become, the more it starts to make sense to you. If all you do is take a break for a while, but do nothing to make the necessary changes within yourself during that time, then you can’t expect to get better results when you start dating again. A dating break only works if you work it!

How long?
How long should it take? There are no hard and fast rules about this. It all depends on how much change and growth you need before it can produce a different result for you. My guess would be a minimum of six months to an average of several years.

Sounds impossible to you right now? If you can’t stand the thought of not dating for six months, then you’re in a precarious state of mind, depending too much on being in a relationship to feel good. A dating break might be just what you need, but you may not be ready to accept it just yet. It requires patience and the determination to keep going for as long as it takes. In our instant gratification, quick-fix culture, people don’t like to hear this, but it’s the truth.

Let these ideas sink and roll in your subconscious for a while. Few people will jump up in glee after reading this and yell, “Yeah, I’m going on a hiatus from dating tomorrow!” Give it some time and when the time is right for you (or when you are miserable and frustrated enough), you will know. When done with the right motivation, a break from dating coupled with some personal growth work can be your ticket to a better future. You’ll be back in the dating game with a real chance of winning next time.

In Monday’s NBA, the 76ers went more than 15 minutes without an FG (0-for-19) in the second half and lost to Houston, 87-81. The Rockets are now 13-6 when both Ming and McGrady are in the lineup and could make the playoffs at the end of the season. New Jersey won its 11th straight home game (8-3 ATS) by beating the Hornets 99-91 and the Bobcats posted two straight wins (after 13 straight losses!), in a 119-106 win over the Sonics. . Golden State beat Denver 122-114, giving the Warriors their sixth straight win on point spread and handing the Nuggets their eighth straight ATS loss!

My bye is college hoops, Virginia over Maryland at 7:00 ET. In Tuesday’s NBA, I look to follow my Eastern Conference GOW winner last night in Washington (94-82), with my Western Conference GOW winner. In college hoops, it’s one of my exclusive Las Vegas Insider games, already off to a 2-0 start in February. Get them BOTH, right now!

Tuesday’s action is highlighted by Detroit seeking its 40th win of the season in a game at Atlanta (7:05 ET). The Pistons lost their last game and have yet to lose consecutive games this season. Atlanta is just 14-32 this year, but the team won just 13 games all of last year. Detroit is favored by 10 points with a total of 191.

The Clippers will attempt to go 12 games over .500 for the first time since the club has been in California when they visit the New York Knicks (7:35 ET). The Clipps have won eight of nine and outscored opponents by 11.9 PPG, while the Knicks have lost five straight and 11 of 12. LA is favored by seven points with a total of 197 1/2.

Dallas attempts its 12th straight win against the Lakers tonight (8:35 ET), which would be an NBA season high (Detroit also won 11 straight this season). The team has held all 11 opponents to under 100 points in the winning streak (allowing an average of just 87.5 PPG), a franchise record.

After going 9-6 in January with Kobe averaging 43.4 PPG, LA is 0-2 in February and has opened its seven-game road trip 1-4 SU and 2-3 ATS (0-3 SU and ATS the last three ). Odom and Mihm will most likely miss out again tonight, leaving the already skinny Lakers even thinner. However, the Lakers have beaten the Mavericks in both meetings this year. The Mavs (9-2 ATS during their winning streak) are favored by 10 1/2 points with a total of 199.

Gonzaga outscored St Mary’s last night 62-61, giving the Bulldogs a 35th consecutive home win, a school record. It is also the longest current home win streak in the nation and the team’s 10 consecutive total wins ties them with George Washington and Memphis for the longest current win streak in the nation. Gonzaga’s win gave them a 9-0 record in the WCC, leaving them as just one of SEVEN schools remaining undefeated in the conference.

Monday was a good night for the ‘losers’ as both James Madison (CAA) and Idaho (WAC) won their first conference games of the year last night. The Dukes won at home over Delaware (74-64) and the Vandals also won at home, 72-61 over Fresno State. That leaves just FIVE schools winless in conference play, one of which (The Citadel), is played tonight.

The biggest games for Tuesday are the ESPN doubleheader, which opens with No. 11 Tennessee at Kentucky (7:00 ET), followed by No. 2 Duke at No. 23 North Carolina (9:00 ET). ET). On ESPN2 at 7:30 ET, No. 4 Villanova plays St Joseph’s at The Palestra (in a Big Five battle). The No. 25 from Northern Iowa remained ranked this week (a first in the school’s 106-year history!), despite losing last week to Creighton.

The Panthers host Wichita State tonight (9:00 ET) and the 19-5 Shockers (seeking their third straight 20-win season!) are tied 3-way for first place with the Panthers and Blue Jays (Creighton) at the MVC at 10-3. No. Iowa is favored by six points with a total of 124 1/2.

Tennessee/Kentucky is the second most played rivalry in SEC history, with the Wildcats leading the series all-time, 137-62. However, while the Vols have lost six in a row at Lexington, they are the ranked team this year (16-3), while the Wildcats are just 15-7, having lost FOUR games at Rupp Arena this year. However, Kentucky is the favorite by 2 1/2 points (total is 152). No. 4 Villanova (17-2) and 10-9 St Joe’s are 3-0 this year over fellow Big Five members La Salle, Penn and Temple, but these teams are hardly the same as the Wildcats enter this game favored by 7 1/2 points with a total of 133 1/2.

ESPN’s Doubleheader Night Cup features Duke in North Carolina. Carolina is back in the top 25 after a two-week absence, but has already lost three times at home this year to Illinois, Miami-Fla and Boston College. Duke is out of two “close calls,” beating BC 83-81 on the road and Florida State 97-96 in OT at home.

Duke is led by Americans JJ Redick (28.2 PPG) and Shelden Williams (18.4-9.9), while Carolina, after losing four players from last year’s national championship team in the NBA draft lottery (and an incredible 81.4 PPG!), is led by four freshmen. The 6-9 Tyler Hansbrough (17.8-7.6) is the best of the bunch. Duke is favored by five points with a total of 155.

Super Bowl Recap Part 1 (The Teams)

Pittsburgh finally earned its “one for the thumb.” The Pittsburgh Steelers (5-1) joined the San Francisco 49ers (5-0) and Dallas Cowboys (5-3) as the only five-time winners in Super Bowl history, with their victory over the Seahawks in the Super Bowl XL. Pittsburgh had won FOUR Super Bowl rings in a six-year span (Super Bowls IX through XIV) and the 26-year gap between Super Bowl wins is second-longest behind Green Bay’s 29-year gap between wins. Super II and Super Bowl XXXI.

Of course, everyone knows that the Steelers became the fifth wild card team to win (including the 1969 KC Chiefs as a wild card team) and the first No. 6 seed to win (NFL began its 12-team playoff format in 1990). What I find even more impressive, however, is that Pittsburgh won a Super Bowl title the year AFTER it finished with the best record in the league.

The Steelers were an NFL-best 15-1 in 2004, but lost to New England in last year’s AFC Championship Game. Knowing that teams that lose in the Super Bowl have struggled in the upcoming season lately (more on that later), I went back to 1990 and checked how the teams that finished with the best regular season record but didn’t win the Super Bowl that same year, did it in the following season?

The results show that the 2005 Steelers join only the 1997 Denver Broncos as teams to have won the Super Bowl the year AFTER finishing with the best record in the league (or tied for best) and NOT winning the Super Bowl. title. The Broncos finished the 1996 season 13-3, tied with Green Bay for the best record in the NFL that season, but while the Packers won the Super Bowl that year, the Broncos were upset in their first playoff game. 1996 (at home by the Jaguars who were underdogs by 14 points), 30-27.

However, the Broncos came back to go 12-4 in 1997 and as a wild card and No. 4 seed in the AFC, they captured their first Super Bowl, beating the Packers in Super Bowl XXXII, 31-24. In total, 13 teams (since 1990) finished a season with the best regular season record in the league (or tied) and did NOT win the Super Bowl that year. Only the 1996 Denver Broncos and 2004 Pittsburgh Steelers have won the Super Bowl in subsequent seasons. Denver in 1997 and Pittsburgh in 2005!

That brings me to Sunday’s Super Bowl losers, the Seattle Seahawks. Of the current 32 franchises in the league, 17 have won Super Bowl titles. Four pre-1980 franchises didn’t even make it to the Super Bowl, the Arizona Cardinals, the Cleveland Browns, the Detroit Lions and the New Orleans Saints. The Jacksonville Jaguars (1995) and Houston Texans (2002) have also never made it to the “definitive” game.

Seattle, making its first Super Bowl appearance in its 30-year history, now joins EIGHT other franchises that have made the ‘trip’ but not won. Of course, the Buffalo Bills and Minnesota Vikings ‘top’ this list with FOUR Super Bowl appearances each, but ZERO wins!

Will Seattle now be put to the test in 2006, by the ‘curse’ suffered by recent Super Bowl losers? Tennessee lost in Super Bowl XXXIV in St Louis, but came back in the 2000 season to finish with an NFL-best 13-3 record. The Titans lost their first playoff game that year, but they are also the last Super Bowl losers to post a winning record the following season!

The last FIVE Super Bowl losers have gone 31-49 combined in the following seasons, for a winning percentage of .388. The teams’ combined ATS records have been even worse, as they are 27-50-3, or a winning percentage of just .351!

My Super Bowl Part 2 recap covers Coaches Cowher and Holmgren, tomorrow.

Ness Notes is available Monday through Friday at 1:00 ET and 9:00 ET on Saturday and Sunday.

As with the baseball stars of that era, Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, the names of the greatest horses of the decade of the roar are still with us, decades after most of those who witnessed their glory have died. Who hasn’t heard of Man O’War? In an iconic decade, great racehorses became icons, and icons continue.

Exterminator

The 1922 Horse of the Year was originally intended as a mother sparring partner for rival Sun Briar. Willis Sharpe Kilmer, who bought the Exterminator before his three-year-old season, thought he had been duped when his trainer Henry McDaniel paid far more than was allowed for the chestnut gelding. But there was a problem: Exterminator was still matching Sun Briar, a champion junior horse, speed for speed in training.

The horse also seemed to have an instinctive understanding of racing strategy, speeding up when necessary and stopping when McDaniel told it to. So when Sun Briar developed ringbone, McDaniel encouraged Kilmer to enter his alternate in the upcoming Kentucky Derby. At first, Kilmer rejected the plan, until the president of Churchill Downs, who had seen the Exterminator training, intervened.

Suddenly, the inexperienced, unraced Exterminator found himself facing a particularly muddy Derby morning. But his furious final kick took him from the back of the pack, where he had waited comfortably during the race, awaiting his moment, to the fountain, where he won by a length.

He continued to mature, racing to the unusual age of nine and beating horses that, in previous years, had bested him. In all, he had 33 stakes wins, a record that no North American Thoroughbred has broken.

mad hatter and mad game

Although they tend to be overshadowed by the more famous half-brother, Man O’War, these Thoroughbred siblings, both sired by Man O’War’s sire Fair Play and the mare Mad Cap, earned top racing honors. important in the early 1920s.

During his two-year-old season, older brother Mad Hatter took the Bellerose Stakes, while developing a reputation as a temperamental, occasionally testy horse best understood by jockey Earl Sande. After his junior season loss to Sir Barton in the Maryland Handicap race, these two horses struck up a rivalry, which added sweetness to Mad Hatter’s Pimlico victory over Sir Barton. But it was as a mature racing thoroughbred that Mad Hatter really shined, winning the Jockey Club Gold Cup and continuing to win stakes races throughout the twenties.

Mad Play, the younger of the two brothers (born 1921), also benefited from the expert guidance of the great Earl Sande. The three-year season saw impressive third-place finishes in the Preakness Stakes, but at Belmont (the last Triple Crown event) he earned lasting fame, outscoring his closest rival by a length and a half.
Both horses, after retirement, were found to be barren, ending the possibility of a mad dynasty.

Man O’War

Was Man O’War (1917-1947), as many have argued, the greatest Thoroughbred racehorse of all time? It depends on the criteria you use. Consistency? (Man O’War won 9 of 10 races in his two-year-old season. His only loss came in the Sanford Memorial Stakes, where his jockey failed to turn him around at the start of this pre-gate era race , and in which he was boxed at least three times and still came second.

The following year he won every race he entered, going 20-1.) Blazing speed? (He set several world and US records.) Willingness to compete? (See that 20-1 record again.) General effect on sport? (Man O’War sired 64 stakes winners, despite horse fanciers’ complaints that he was paired with inferior mares. He was also the grandfather of Seabiscuit.)

No matter how you judge it, it’s hard to argue too much with Blood Horse magazine’s statement, in its list of the 100 Greatest American Thoroughbred Champions of the 20th Century, that Man O’War belonged at the top of that list.