Michael Vick’s starting job on a ‘game-to-game’ basis
Michael Vick’s future in Philadelphia has been a topic of debate all season. Unless he dramatically turns around his play, the expectation is that the Philadelphia Eagles won’t keep him around in 2013.
The question now becomes: Will he survive 2012?
NFL Network’s Michael Lombardi said Sunday on “NFL GameDay Morning” that Vick’s status as the Eagles’ starting quarterback is now on a “game-to-game basis.” The 3-3 Eagles won’t hesitate to turn to rookie Nick Foles if Vick continues to turn the ball over like crazy. Lombardi believes Foles already would have the job if coach Andy Reid wasn’t fighting for his job.
For now, Reid believes Vick gives him the best chance to win. It sounds like the highly paid quarterback can’t survive many more poor outings.
Follow Gregg Rosenthal on Twitter @greggrosenthal.
Read MoreRob Ryan has harsh words for New York Giants
The New York Giants recently claimed they aren’t respected. Apparently, they don’t give it, either. Isn’t this game fun?
Dallas Cowboys defensive coordinator Rob Ryan told the New York Post, via Pro Football Talk, the Giants didn’t give the Cowboys credit for their Week 1 victory.
“A bunch of bull—-,” Ryan said, who went on to speak of the Week 1 victory in sarcastic terms. ”I understand we played the Giants before and the only reason we stopped them was their lack of execution, that it had nothing to do our players or our scheme. … That’s been well documented. That was said.
“They give a lot of credit where credit is due, and it’s just because of their lack of execution. We got the message, we understand that. That’ll be great. We’re looking forward to that challenge.
“They’re the Super Bowl champs. We’ve given them nothing but respect. They’ve hung a million yards up on us before. Then we played them the first game of the year, they just had a bad day.”
There’s never a dull moment when the Ryan brothers are involved. And there’s nothing better than a perceived slight turned into bulletin board material.
Good times.
Follow Kareem Copeland on Twitter @kareemcopeland.
Read MoreGiants pitching trio blanks Tigers for 3-0 World Series lead
Nothing is stopping them — not even the Triple Crown winner at the plate with the bases loaded.
Armed and accelerating, the San Francisco Giants became the first team to throw consecutive World Series shutouts in nearly a half-century, blanking Miguel Cabrera and the Detroit Tigers 2-0 on a chilly Saturday night for a commanding 3-0 lead.
“I’ll say this: The club is playing well,” Giants manager Bruce Bochy said.
No team has ever blown such a huge margin in the World Series. And with the way Ryan Vogelsong, Tim Lincecum and the Giants are pitching, it seemed unlikely the Tigers would even score a run, yet alone win a game.
Gregor Blanco hit an RBI triple and trotted home on Brandon Crawford’s single in the second inning, and that was ample for the Giants. Timely hits, combined with another dominant effort on the mound and sharp defense put them close to their second title in three years.
After playing a nearly perfect Game 3, the Giants will turn to Mr. Perfect Game himself — ace Matt Cain — to try for a sweep Sunday against Max Scherzer.
At this rate, it appeared only a bailout by the San Francisco staff could help the Motor City.
Don’t count on it. Switching to an AL park, chilly weather and a crowd of towel-waving fans ready to rock didn’t slow `em down at all.
“Well, it’s a good situation, but there’s nothing been done yet,” Bochy said. “It’s a number, just like I said about two. Now it’s three. But that’s not the Series.”
The Giants won their franchise-record sixth straight postseason game, and haven’t trailed in any of them. Quite opposite for the Tigers: Coming off a sweep of the Yankees in the AL championship series, they haven’t held a lead in the Series.
“We couldn’t get the killer hit or the killer blow,” Tigers manager Jim Leyland said.
Vogelsong, a career journeyman whose path to the World Series took a detour to Japan, improved to 3-0 with a 1.09 ERA in four starts this postseason.
“I knew my stuff was pretty good,” Vogelsong said. “I was really pumped up to be out there.”
Vogelsong joined Blue Moon Odom in 1972 and Burt Hooton in 1981 in making four straight starts in a post-season allowing one run or none.
Vogelsong induced two early double plays, then faced his stiffest test in the fifth.
The bases were loaded with one out when Vogelsong fanned rookie Quintin Berry. That brought up Cabrera, honored on the field before the game with an actual blue-and-gold crown for his Triple Crown accomplishments.
With the fans chanting “M-V-P!” and likely sensing the whole Series was riding on this at-bat, Vogelsong seemed completely calm while chewing gum. He won the matchup, too, getting an easy popup that prompted Cabrera to slam his bat to the ground and elicited cheers in the San Francisco dugout.
Lincecum took over with two outs in the sixth, and the two-time reliever looked as if he had been coming out of the bullpen his whole life and shut down the Tigers.
Closer Sergio Romo finished off the combined five-hitter with his second save of the Series.
Blanco punctuated the ninth inning with his latest fancy grab, a sprinting catch into foul territory in left field.
Combined with Madison Bumgarner’s effort in Game 2, San Francisco threw the first consecutive shutouts in the Series since Baltimore in 1966, when Jim Palmer, Wally Bunker and Dave McNally did the trick to finish off the Dodgers.
Shut out only twice all year, the Tigers once again looked lost at the plate. When fan favorite Prince Fielder struck out in the eighth, some boos bounced around Comerica Park. Big hitters with teeny numbers, Cabrera and Fielder are a combined 3 for 19 against the Giants.
“It is what it is,” Fielder said.
The fearsome Tigers have totaled a mere three runs and 15 hits while hitting .165 in three games, and were shut out twice in a row for the first time since April 2008.
Only one team in baseball history has overcome a 3-0 deficit in the postseason, with Boston doing it in the 2004 ALCS against the Yankees.
“Well, you don’t really have to tell them anything. They can count,” Leyland said. “They’re big guys, they know what the situation is.”
For the Tigers, it was the sixth straight Series loss dating to 2006 against St. Louis. They got a fine effort from pitcher Anibal Sanchez this time, but it wasn’t enough against these Giants.
Losing posture
It was 47 degrees at gametime, a drop of 17 from Thursday night at AT&T Park, and the Tigers clearly knew this was their chance to pull back into the Series.
Soon enough, Game 3 took on a familiar look.
During the Giants’ early two-run burst, Detroit’s body language said all you needed to know about this Series. At one point in-between pitches, Cabrera put his hands on his hips at third base, shortstop Jhonny Peralta scuffed the dirt, second baseman Omar Infante turned his back to the infield, Fielder stared down at first.
A losing posture, plain and simple.
The Comerica crowd, so pumped earlier in the postseason, quickly fell silent. Desperate to cheer for anything, the fans hollered for a long, albeit routine, flyout by Delmon Young.
Detroit grounded into the most double plays in the majors this year, and two slick turns by Crawford at shortstop added to the Tigers’ total.
Both DPs came with two on and one out, by Fielder in the first and the speedy rookie Berry in the third. Berry put both hands on his batting helmet as he zoomed well past the base, running out his frustration.
Working on 12 days’ rest, Sanchez may have been the latest Detroit player to be caught in the Rust Belt, at least in the second inning. That’s when he constantly overthrew his fastball and did not resemble the pitcher who had made two sharp starts this postseason.
The San Francisco hitters also were amply familiar with Sanchez. This was the fourth time he had matched up with Vogelsong in the last two years — Sanchez twice won duels, then lost a slugfest.
Hunter Pence, who scored one run and drove in the other during a 2-0 win in Game 2, drew a four-pitch walk to begin the second. It was a telling sign — Sanchez had not walked a right-handed batter since August.
Pence stole second, took third on a wild pitch and, with the Tigers’ infield playing in, trotted home when Blanco tripled off the wall in right. Crawford looped an RBI single with two outs for a 2-0 lead, and Rick Porcello began warming up in the Detroit bullpen.
Earlier in the game, Cabrera reached safely in his first 23 post-season games, two shy of Boog Powell’s record, according to STATS LLC.
Read MorePittsburgh Steelers react to ‘bumblebee’ uniforms
The Pittsburgh Steelers’ throwback jerseys are so, um, gaudy that Ike Taylor had to make up a word to describe them.
“I like them. I like the throwback, man. That bumblebee, jailhouse look from back in the day,” Taylor told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. “I’ll try to put ‘swag’ and ‘swurve’ in the same word. How about ‘swavvin’? You got to have that Looney Toons accent like Porky the Pig when you say it, too.
“‘Swav-v-v-v-v-v-v-in.’”
Pretty sure “bumblebee, jailhouse” wasn’t what designers were going for ahead of Sunday’s matchup against the Washington Redskins. Probably not a good idea to have the team resemble a 1930′s chain gang. The big guys especially.
“I don’t like to call them fat, but on the big, healthy guys, it’s not going to look too good,” Taylor said.
“Sideways stripes don’t do me no good,” nose tackle Casey Hampton said. “Honestly, any uniform does me bad, so it can’t really get any worse than it already is.”
The Steelers throwbacks have not been met with much fanfare. Only 14 percent of voters on a Post-Gazette online poll liked the uniforms. They’re even worse than the Packers’ recent throwbacks with the blue jersey, yellow dot in the middle and doo-doo brown helmets. That’s quite the accomplishment.
Follow Kareem Copeland on Twitter @kareemcopeland.
Read MoreObamaCare’s Unenforceable Tax
In the Daily Dispatch, Reason magazine Senior Editor Jacob Sullum writes:
Last week, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives voted to repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, aka ObamaCare. It was the 33rd such vote taken by the House and, since Democrats control the Senate, no more likely to be successful than the first 32.
The day before the vote, however, the House Ways and Means Committee heard testimony that highlighted another, more promising way to override the health care law: Americans can refuse to comply with its command that they obtain government-approved medical coverage, which the Supreme Court has deemed a mere suggestion even though it is essential to the legislation’s goals. Furthermore, if ObamaCare objectors take a simple precaution, they can opt out without paying the prescribed penalty.
ObamaCare requires insurers to take all comers and charge them the same rates, regardless of health. Those rules create two problems that reinforce each other: They raise premiums, and they encourage people to delay buying medical coverage until they’re sick.
As more healthy people go without insurance, rates rise further to make up the difference, which encourages more people to go without insurance, which increases rates further still. To avoid such a “death spiral,” ObamaCare commanded young, healthy people to “maintain minimum essential coverage” as defined by the government, thereby subsidizing the medical expenses of older, sicker people.
Read the full column here.
Related:
Reason on health care and the Supreme Court.
Christy Turlington John Goodman
Read MoreKim And Kourtney Kardashian Go Grocery Shopping With Mason
That’s one well dressed family!
On Friday, Kim Kardashian joined sister Kourtney and her son Mason Disick on their journey to the grocery store in Miami.
The eldest Kardashian sibling has been sticking close to her family lately, but that could change as rumors of an impending engagement between her and Scott Disick begin to arrive. Let’s see if he puts a ring on it!
Do you think it’s time for Kourtney and Scott to tie the knot?