The 2021 Grandstander Power Rankings (GPR)

 

After allowing things to shake out a bit, The Grandstander is ready to release his first Grandstander Power Rankings for the 2021 NFL season.  The theory behind the GPR is to look at the NFL in the same way that College Football crowns its Champion: a four team playoff.  Yeah, yeah, I know, the NFL's system is much, MUCH better, but what the hell, this is kind of fun, it's easy on my cranium, and if it generates any interest or debate, so much the better.  From here on out, right through Week 18, you will get an updated GPR, and here is the first one:

1. Cardinals - Got to go with the only undefeated team remaining.
2. Bills - This team lost to the Steelers?
3. Cowboys - Yes, the Cowboys are always over-rated, so how long will this last?
4. Rams - The rematch with AZ later in the season should be fun.

Knocking on the door - Bucs, Chargers, Chiefs, Packers, Raiders, Ravens.

Fun Off the Field Story of the Week.  While his 0-4 team flies back to Jacksonville without him, HC Urban Meyer stays on in Ohio, yucks it up in his Columbus area restaurant, and gets caught on video sleazily acting out with women young enough to be his daughter.   Three questions: (1) Will Meyer finish out his rookie season in the NFL? (2) Will he now become toxic and unemployable? (3) Which NCAA D-I school will whore itself out and hire this jackass as their head coach for 2022?

The Final GPR, Shirt Pocket Notes, and an Absent Friend, Grant Jackson

We are a little over 72 hours away from the ultimate game*, so it's time for the final Grandstander Power Rankings of the season.

Short and sweet:

1. Chiefs
2. Bucs

It's hard to differentiate these two teams at this point, and it's hard to put any team ahead of another team that has Tom Brady at quarterback, but there you are.  I think that this is a terrific match-up and that it's going to be a terrific game.  At this point, I am leaning towards the Chiefs, but will reserve my official prediction until Saturday or maybe even Sunday morning.

Patrick Mahomes vs. Tom Brady.  Couldn't get much better.

* I believe that it was Duane Thomas, the iconoclastic Dallas Cowboys running back of the 1970's, who said "If it's the ultimate game, why are they playing another one next year?"  I don't think that the powers-that-be in the NFL much appreciated that remark at the time.

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Now for some shirt pockets notes that have been accumulating over the last couple of weeks.....

The Jacksonville Jaguars made a huge off season splash by hiring Urban Meyer to be their new head coach.  It will be fascinating to watch Meyer, who was, and presumably still is, a total control freak as a college head coach, as a first time professional coach.  It has been reported that after completing seasons with records like 11-1 or 12-2 in college, not untypical for him, Meyer would spend the entire off season obsessing over the games that his teams lost. It would inevitably lead to "health issues" that would cause him to resign his coaching positions.  How is that mindset going to translate on the pro level with a team that will probably lose more games in 2021 that Meyer's college teams lost in any given five or six given seasons?  Meyer's worst season as a college coach was in 2010 at Florida, when the Gators went 8-5, a season which lead to Meyer's health issues and resignation.  In seven seasons at Ohio State, Meyer went 83-9, plus 5-2 in Bowl games.  Eleven losses in seven years.  That ain't gonna happen in Jacksonville, not anytime soon, anyway.

Also, Meyer will not be able to out-recruit the NFL as he was able to do in the Big Ten or SEC.  Plus, professional players making hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars are going to be more likely to tell him to pound sand with his my-way-or-the-highway approach to coaching than a bunch of scholarship student-athletes on college campuses.

Meyer can coach on the college level, no question about that, but he's never done it on the pro level, so  this is going to be an interesting lab experiment to watch over the next few seasons.  Not sure what the length of his Jax contract is, but I'm betting he won't serve the full term of it.

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The Pittsburgh Pirates began making news starting on Christmas Eve when they traded current "Face of the Franchise" Josh Bell to the Washington Nationals.   There then followed January trades of Joe Musgrove to the Padres and Jameson Taillon to the Yankees.  These three trades netted ten  "prospects", some of them highly regarded, for the Pirates.  Throw in the 2020 trade of Starling Marte to the Diamondbacks for prospects, and it becomes obvious what GM Ben Cherrington is attempting to do: a complete teardown of any tangible assets the team may have in an effort to restock the farm system and then become serious contenders by 2023 or 2024.

It's a great idea, in theory, and I hope it works, but in the meantime, it is going to mean seeing some very bad baseball teams plying their trade at PNC Park over the next few years.  Also, it is sad to see guys like Bell and Taillon being sent packing, because once, THEY were the young stars of the future around whom the Pirates would be building championship caliber teams.  How did that work out?

All three of the players sent away by GMBC are going to teams that figure to be contenders this coming season, so they are no doubt thrilled with the opportunity to escape Bob Nutting's Ship of Fools.  Good for them.  For Pirates fans, 2021 just promises to be another Groundhog Day season where the team will struggle to avoid 100 losses.

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Speaking of the 2021 baseball season, isn't it fun reading about how the owners and players are engaged in yet another pissing contest over the terms of the upcoming season in a nation that is still gripped in the clutches of a pandemic and public health crisis.  Just like the lead up to the shortened 2020 season.  And a preview to the Armageddon that is sure to ensue after the 2021 season when the CBA needs to be renegotiated.  It is almost as if the MLB Owners and the MLBPA actually want their sport to shrivel up and die.

I will normally always take the sides of the players in these sports labor-management dustups, but I am getting so tired of these annual dances that surround Major League Baseball.  They will get around to playing games in 2021, and I will no doubt be watching intently, as I always have, but the day is surely coming when we will be subjected to these unseemly discussions, the game will come back, and the people are going to say "You know what?  I just don't care,"  and they will choose to watch NBA Summer League games and MLS instead.  I think that day has already arrived for people under the age of forty or so.

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Finally, we bid good-bye to former Pirates pitcher Grant Jackson, who died this week of COVID related symptoms at the age of 78.  Jackson was a member of Pirates 1979 World Series Championship team, the winning pitcher in Game Seven, and for that alone he deserves recognition.  Another fact that I had forgotten was that Jackson also pitched in the 1971 World Series against the Pirates as a member of the Baltimore Orioles.  Jackson spoke of several occasions to the Pittsburgh SABR Chapter, and he was always an entertaining and lively speaker.  He was a part of a panel discussion on the '79 team at the SABR National Convention held in Pittsburgh in 2017.  After his career ended, Jackson remained in Pittsburgh and served as a vital member of the Pirates Alumni, the Pirates Fantasy Camp, and in Community Relations for the team.

Farewell, Buck Jackson, and RIP.

Sports Notes - Various Topics

Cleaning out the Mental In-Box, Wide, Wide World of Sports Division.....

The Pittsburgh Pirates had a spectacular month of July, sporting a record of 17-9 that shot them back into playoff contention.  August has not been so kind.  With three games remaining, the August ledger shows them at 8-16.  Fourth place in the Central, 14 games out of first place.  Eight and one-half games out of the Wild Card spot with nine (9!!) teams ahead of them.  With thirty games remaining, they have to go 18-12 just to finish over .500.

And here is some more good news.  On his weekly radio show on Sunday, Neal Huntington led off with this quote:

"As we look at next year's club, the core of it is this year's club."

How would you like to be a ticket sales rep for that Pirates with THAT as your marketing slogan this off-season?

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Le'Veon Bell has indicated that he will sign his franchise tag deal with the Steelers and report for practice on Monday, one week before the regular season opener.  All the Steelers players and coaches are saying the right things.  You know, "He's the best...it's just business....we're glad he's back...we need him to get where we want to go"...and blah blah blah.

When this season ends, and Bell goes and collects his pot of free agency gold in 2019, these same players, the ones who have been banging their heads at training camp and in exhibition games will no doubt tell us what they REALLY thought of Bell's hold outs these last two seasons.  You know, like they all told us about what kind of a teammate James Harrison was in his final year with the team after the Steelers canned him.

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Pitt opens its 2018 football season on Saturday against the mighty Great Danes of Albany University. I am looking forward to being at Heinz Field on Saturday to see Albany collect it's huge paycheck, and to spending another convivial season, my sixth, amongst the members of the ticket group I am in.  That's will always be fun.

As for how is Pitt going to fare this season, I can claim no insight or expertise to make a valid prediction.  However, I do know this: In the three seasons under Head Coach Pat Narduzzi (or HCPN, as he will be known for the remainder off this blogging season), Pitt has gone 8-5, 8-5, 5-7 (0-2 in bowl games; they failed to qualify for a bowl last year, and that's not easy to do in college football these days).  It's time for the Panthers to take that proverbial "next step" under Narduzzi.  Not sure what that means, but it would sure be nice to see Pitt in the race for a slot in the ACC Championship game in November.  HCPN has already predicted that they will be in that game. Can't say that he's shying away from putting himself on the spot.

Oh, and Pitt is relying heavily on sophomore quarterback Kenny Pickett, who as started all of one game in his career.  Granted, that game was a spectacular upset win over a 10-0 (or were they 11-0 at the time?) Miami, and Pickett sure was great in that one.  Still, Pitt is putting  a lot of eggs in the inexperienced Pickett's basket.  I hope it works out.

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On the national scene, you are all familiar with the sordid tale of Urban Meyer and the ridiculous slap on the wrist that Ohio State handed him last week.  This has been written about extensively by many, many talented national sportswriters and commentators,  so I won't restate the story here. Suffice to say, most people, at least most people outside of the state of Ohio, feel that Meyer should have been fired.  I especially like one columnist I read, and I regret that I can't remember who it was, who has renamed the Buckeyes coach "Urban Liar".

Well, at least we know who and what runs the show at THE Ohio State University, and considering their track record over the years with Woody Hayes and Jim Tressel, I guess we shouldn't really be surprised.

As for me, I have decided to effect any own form of protest.  I have decided that I will NOT watch any college football game this season involving Ohio State.  That could include several games of consequence, including games against Penn State and Michigan, and it could also include games in the College Football Playoffs in January.  Although  I would think - hope? - that that CFP Committee would bend over backwards to NOT include Ohio State in that four team set-up, no matter what their record.

Now, I know that little old me sitting in Pittsburgh, PA not watching a given football game or games on a given weekend or weekends will not amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world, but it will make me feel better about myself.  So I have that going for me, which is nice.  (Two classic movie lines referenced in one paragraph!)

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The other big announcement in recent days was confirmation that Tiger Woods will meet Phil Mickelson, head to head, in a $9 million televised golf match over Thanksgiving weekend.  Of course the Nine Large will be coming from someone else's pockets - yours!  Yep, this made for TV event will be available only on a Pay-Per-View basis, probably cost you twenty-five to thirty bucks to watch this event.  

Now I love Tiger and Phil, and they are arguably the two greatest and most important golfers (and in the case of Woods, one of the most important athletes) in this century, but this is pure money grab, worthy only of fading boxers, MMA fighters, and Vince McMahon.  Also, between them, Woods and Mickelson have won exactly one tournament in the last five years.  I don't begrudge anyone making a buck, but guys of their stature should really be above this.  

Now, if they were going to play a skins game for $1,000 a hole OF THEIR OWN MONEY....that I might be willing to watch.