Don't Want to Think

Our generation loves action. Our parents may have loved the ‘thinking man’s games’ but we want more action. Two of the most popular sports for your parents were boxing and baseball. Both are considered thinking men’s games but both considered too slow by many in the new generation. We are more into the UFC and football.

The UFC is a bloody alternative to boxing. It encompasses fighters with mixed martial arts backgrounds in fights that almost look like street fights. There are rules in the UFC but they do not stop the two fighters from beating each other senseless with fists, kicks, slams, and submission moves. The sport aims their product at 18-35 year olds and they have a lot of young men who love to watch. Boxer Floyd Mayweather recently called the UFC a fad.

I would have to disagree 100% with Floyd’s assessment. The biggest money grossing boxing fight in 2006 was the fight between De la Hoya and Mayorga. It drew 925,000 pay-per-view buys in the United States at $49.95 per buy, which generated gross PPV revenue of $46.20 million. The UFC has publicly and repeatedly predicted that UFC 66 will draw 1.2 million PPV buys, and with a price of $39.95, the gross PPV revenue would be $47.94 million. This would mean that the UFC is making more money than boxing. Now that UFC just bought its biggest rival (Pride) they can now have super fights between the two organizations that will draw even more attention.

The claim that the UFC is a fad is just absurd. I guarantee more people watch UFC’s Ultimate Fighter on Spike TV than people watch Friday Night Fights on ESPN. This combined with the PPV numbers listed above show that more people are watching the UFC. Not to mention that I used the current most popular fighter (De La Hoya) to compare the 2 sports. There is little star power is the sport of boxing today outside of a few names, and they only fight once a year. A UFC fighter fights several times per year.

Football is now America’s #1 sport. The 2007 AFC Championship game was watched by more than twice as many people as the 2006 World Series. I am not even comparing the World Series to the Superbowl, which would yield even a greater disparity.

More people go to college these days more than ever, but that doesn’t mean we always want to think. Our generation grew up on Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, Jean-Claude Van Damme, and Steven Segal. This should show you that we don’t care to think at all. We just want action.

"The Real Sexy Rexy" of the NFL

The Ravens are a powerhouse for defensive coordinators getting the head coaching nod in the NFL and while I am honestly proud of the fact that our team is noted for the great defensive mindset we have, it scares the hell out of me.

Brian Billick has a great passion for not only the game, but he also brings the best coaches to the sidelines of M&T Bank.

If Rex leaves, I know we can replace him, but I wonder how we can continually replace our leaders. We lose Marvin Lewis to the Redskins and then the Bengals (although I wonder if he wants to be back in Purple or get arrested) and we let Mike Nolan get the nod.

Rex Ryan is a top notch guy who understands what it takes to win and I am more than happy that the Chargers think the best of him, but I am also selfish within this matter.

The Baltimore Sun reported ...
What caught the eye of everyone in the Chargers' organization was Ryan's jewelry - the Super Bowl ring he won with the Ravens in January 2001.

"That would be something that we'd be targeting," Ryan told San Diego reporters after meeting with Chargers executives yesterday. "We'd like to get several of those, but we want to put a different logo on it."

The Chargers obviously agree...

“It was great to sit down and talk football with Rex,” Smith said. “We exchanged philosophical views, and a lot of it leaned on defense because of my philosophy that defense wins championships. That’s Rex’s expertise. He was born and raised in a football family with a great defensive-minded coach. We talked about his upbringing in football, and I found that very interesting.”

Dont Go Rex...But if you do...I'll root for you, not the Chargers

NFL Drug Policy Still Not Enough

After the San Diego Chargers linebacker Shawne Merriman’s appointment to the Pro Bowl, the NFL finally did the right thing. . . well at least they are headed that way. The NFL Players Association has agreed to ban any player who tests positive for performance enhancing drugs from participating in the Pro Bowl in that same season. This rule however will not go into effect until next year, so Merriman will still get to play in this year’s Pro Bowl. Merriman was suspended this year for 4 games after testing positive for performance enhancing drugs, but still managed to make a big enough impact in his 12 games to make the Pro Bowl roster.

It is good to see that the NFL made sure that players using performance enhancing drugs will not make the Pro Bowl, in addition to the 4-game suspension that is already in place, but even then the NFL’s punishment for a positive test is a joke. Miami Dolphins defensive end Jason Taylor had it right when he said, “You really shouldn't be able to fail a test like that and play in this league, to begin with.”

Indianapolis Colts’ Dwight Freeney basically said that there is no way to tell how many plays a player made because of this unfair advantage. I would agree with this and even take a step further by saying that there is no way to tell how much extra money a player made because of this unfair advantage. A player could use performance enhancers for years without getting caught and continue to reap the rewards from doing so (both physically and financially) for years after the player is caught. A lot of players may take this chance if the only punishment is a 4-game suspension and no Pro Bowl appointment.

The NFL is on the right track, but they should do more to deter players from using performance enhancing drugs.

The Super Bowl Shuffle

Well, they're baaaaack. It's been 21 long years, but Sunday afternoon the Chicago Bears defeated the New Orleans Saints 39-14 to advance to the Super Bowl. Bears' quarterback Rex Grossman didn't have a great game by any stretch of the imagination. But he also did not commit a single turnover and was 6-for-6 passing down a crucial stretch of the game.

After all was said and done, Grossman's overall statistics...or lack thereof...didn't seem to bother any of the Bears' players, including star linebacker Brian Urlacher.

When we asked him to do it, he has. He's a winner. I don't know what his career record is, I don't care what his stats are, he's a winner.

But we can't ignore the AFC champion either, as much as I'd like to. Peyton Manning and the Indianapolis Colts finally dethroned pretty boy Tom Brady and the Patriots. Their 18-point rally will go down as one of the best playoff feats ever and it's in large part to Manning and his poise in the pocket.

Now, even though this year's Super Bowl won't include the beloved Saints or Patriots, it will include two teams with incredibly athletic defenses, good running games and ...uh...strong-throwing quarterbacks? I guess there really aren't many similarities between the Bears and Colts at all other than the fact that they both live and die by their quarterbacks and defense.

It will be interesting to see how the two teams match up against each other though. Each team has all the momentum in the world coming into the game and each has an incredible fan base backing them, especially on this campus. I don't know who the winner will be two weeks from now in Miami, but I do know that this campus will be the place to be for the Super Bowl.

So I'll pose this question to all you Colts fans out there: do the Bears stand a chance against Peyton Manning? Or will they be doing a new version of the Super Bowl Shuffle two weeks from now?