By Dan O’Shea

First basketball, then baseball.
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The depths of the Pacific Division in the NBA’s Western Conference may seem an unlikely place to find waiver wire bargains, but three players with the bottom three teams in that division had great weeks.
* Eric Gordon, now starting at shooting guard for the L.A. Clippers, averaged 20.8 points per game last week and has been steadily improving of late. Last week, we linked to a post talking about how rookies start to flag around this time of the season, but Gordon is in a zone, as we old-school ballers used to say. He’s only 71 percent taken in Yahoo! leagues.

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Posted on February 5, 2009

By David Rutter

1. You mean that Matt Millen is an analyst? Seeing the man who single-handedly (OK, so he used both hands) destroyed the Detroit Lions being trotted out as an expert football assessor is like, oh, I dunno, like trotting out Bob Davie as an analyst. Oh, wait . . .
COMMENT 11:11 A.M.: Kelly Murphy writes:
Just had to add, Detroit was not very happy about Millen either. Here is a video that shows a scroll during the game.

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See also: “Warning! Matt Millen’s On.”

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Posted on February 4, 2009

By Jim Coffman

How did we ever survive a decade of Super Bowl blowouts? From 1992 to 2001, eight games were decided by 10 or more points – the other two featured seven-point spreads and only one of those games was still legitimately on the line in the final seconds. We’re spoiled now, what with the last eight contests featuring three field-goal wins by the Patriots and the last two big games coming down to back-and-forth “you think that was incredible? Try this!” touchdown drives.
Actually, the Cardinals’ final touchdown was less the result of a march and more a matter of one perfectly executed play. In it, frazzled Steeler safeties were enticed to try to jump intermediate routes run by receivers out wide on both sides and Larry Fitzgerald (who finished another multiple-touchdown playoff game with a just-about insurmountable lead in the “greatest post-season ever by a wide receiver” competition) found nothing but wide open territory in front of him after he turned upfield in the middle. Had the Steelers lost this one, that 64-yard touchdown would have haunted coach Mike Tomlin and his staff for the rest of their lives.

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Posted on February 2, 2009