Watch 2010-2011 NFL Playoffs Live Stream Online plus Schedule. With the 2010 NFL regular season ending on Sunday January 2, 2011, and NFL Playoff Scenario 2010-2011 is shaping up and will be completely set after Week 17 games, 2010-2011 NFL playoffs is here and Super Bowl XLV (45) is a month from now on February [...]
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Since the day the Chargers hired him, I’ve always been a Norv Turner supporter. After the Chargers canned Marty Schottenheimer there were rumors the next Chargers coach would be Jimmy Johnson. So while everyone was flabbergasted when the Chargers ended up with Norv Turner I drank the Kool-Aid and argued that it was a good move to keep the offense intact since the Chargers’ previous offensive coordinator, Cam Cameron, was a Norv Turner disciple.
(In retrospect I can sympathize with everyone who thought we were getting Jimmy Johnson. It’s like being caught up in bank robbery, expecting Batman to show up – in this analogy Jimmy Johnson, and getting his sidekick Robin—in this case Turner, who was Johnson’s offensive coordinator with his Dallas Cowboys Super Bowl teams.)
Under Norv Tuner the Chargers have been notorious for their slow starts. For some reason or another (probably because in September the weather in San Diego is beautiful while most of the county has to deal with humidity and thunderstorms) the Chargers stumble through the first part of the season. Again, I rationalized this by maintaining that if you blame Tuner for his slow starts you have to give him credit for the way the Chargers inexplicably turned it on in December, played perfect football and always won the division. But now that the Chargers are a pubic hair away from missing the playoffs, I’m jumping off the Norv Turner bandwagon. I’m saying that if the Chargers don’t make the playoffs this season, the Chargers have to fire Norv Turner.
I am finally ready to admit that Norv Turner is a horrible football coach. Since the loss to the Raiders this past Sunday I’ve been pulling my hair out thinking how incredibly unprepared the Chargers have been this season. For instance:
- How can the Chargers not be ready for the run and let the Raiders run it 52 times for 251 yards? (Think about that for a second… FIFTY TWO RUSH ATTEMPTS! TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY ONE YARDS!)
- How can Richard Goodman not know that you have to be touched down in the NFL?
- How can the Chargers come out flat against a team with a rookie QB that won one game last year?
- How can your special teams allow two consecutive block punts?
- Or two consecutive kick returns?
- How can your equipment people not bring long cleats to a game in the mid-West where it always rains during the latter months of the summer?
In the end it always boils down to the coach. The teams that have the best coaches may not win all the time but they also never make mistakes that cost them games: The Steelers (Mike Tomlin), Patriots (Bill Belichick), Saints (Sean Payton), Ravens (John Harbaugh) never beat themselves. Or to put it a better way: Good coaches don’t let their teams beat themselves.
For the Chargers these past few seasons, it seems like they can’t get out of their own way. They’re complacent. They think they’re better than they actually are. And they only show up to play in about half their games. The coach has to be held accountable for this. In the preseason, instead of pounding it in his player’s head that they overachieved last year, that they finished near the bottom of the league in rushing, that they couldn’t get off the field on defense, that they couldn’t consistently pressure the QB, that they won a lot of games in the final minutes, Turner gloated that this is the most talented team he’s ever coached. In hindsight this probably made his players overconfident and a little complacent. I can’t fathom Belichick, Tomlin, or Payton doing this. Football teams inevitably take on the personality of their head coach. The Chargers have been unprepared and unmotivated for too long and it may have finally caught up to them.
The Chargers should have missed the playoffs two years ago and would have had it not been for an epic collapse by the Broncos. If the Chargers somehow make the playoffs this year it will be due to the fact that Matt Cassel’s appendix got microwaved earlier this week. After the news that Cassel could miss the up to four weeks with his appendectomy this week my running joke has been that God must love the Chargers. Think about it: God (if there is a God, but that’s a totally different discussion) loves suffering. There’s suffering all over the place. People die of cancer. We have 18 year old kids dying in some dessert 10,000 miles away because of… what was it again? There’s homeless people, poverty in third world countries, natural disasters that take out cities at a time. They’re high school and college kids that shoot their classmates, priests that molest kids. My point is, there’s suffering all over the place and this supposedly omnipotent entity is just sitting there watching the show. God is probably a sadist and if he were one wouldn’t you think that he’d love the Chargers? They’re the team that drags their fans to hell every season, brings their hopes up and then slaps them in the face. The reason why this happens EVERY… SINGLE… YEAR… is Norv Turner! God must love Norv Turner. But we, as Charger fans don’t.
(Did I just make an argument that Norv Turner is an agent of God? I’m going to watch out for lighting tonight when I take my dog out to take a leak just in case He decides I’m the person he wants to see suffer next.)
Every Charger fan would love for the Chargers to get rid of Norv Turner after this year but the question is who would they get to replace him? The easy answer is Bill Cowher or John Gruden but we know that’s not happening. It’s almost a shortcut to thinking to suggest that there’s a remote possibility that one of these guys would become the Charger’s next coach. Those guys not only want to coach but they want control of personnel decisions as well and AJ Smith isn’t going anywhere. Plus anyone who was a Charger fan in the 90s knows that the Spanoses would never spend the kind of money it would take to land a coach like Cowher or Gruden. So while it’s cool that Gruden auditions for the head coaching job every time the Chargers are on Monday Night Football let’s think outside the box. I want a coach who’s smart. I want a coach who’s hungry. I want a coach who can motivate his team to overachieve rather than accept the fact that his teams underachieve. Here are my top five choices:
Brian Schottenheimer: This would never happen because AJ Smith canned his dad but there is no doubt Schottenheimer is going to be a great head coach one of these days. The only problem with hiring him is you risk the potential that he carries the same “choke in the playoffs” gene that his dad has. Imagine the crapstorm the first time Brian Schottenheimer loses a playoff game. Herm Edwards’ head would explode while arguing about this with Mark Schlereth in the Coors Light Silver Spotlight segment in SportsCenter. If could affect Schottenheimer his entire career.
Russ Grimm: Grimm interviewed for the Charger head coaching job after Marty Schottenheimer was axed and also was a finalist for the Steeler job that went to Mike Tomlin. He coached under Cowher and coaches under Ken Whisenhunt (another fine coach that would have made the “good coaches” section a few paragraphs ago had he not entirely botched the QB situation in Arizona this season). The only concern I have with him is he’s an offensive line coach and he hasn’t proven that he can run a scheme in the NFL yet. Regardless, the fact that he coached under Cowher and Whisenhunt makes him a worthy candidate. Also it’s hard to imagine an offensive line coach that would put up with one of his lineman on special teams missing an assignment twice. (Yes, I’m talking about you Antwan “I Can’t Count to Four and Fall for the Bootleg” Applewhite.)
Eric Mangini: Say what you want about the way it ended for him with the Jets but this guy knows how to win football games. The Jets were coming off a 4-12 year when he took over and he took them to the playoffs with a 10-6 record. And this year the Browns are 5-7 but they’re overachieving by everyone’s expectations. This year the guy won five games – with wins against the Patriots and Saints – and has Colt McCoy and Jake Delhomme at QB. If Mike Holmgren and the Browns are dumb enough to get rid of him for someone like Gruden the Chargers should pounce. Norv Turner underachieves with Philip Rivers at QB. If you want to know how Turner would do with QBs like McCoy and Delhomme Google “Oakland Raiders 2004-2005” and “Norv Tuner Washington Redskins.”
Leslie Fraizer: This guy is Mike Tomlin 2.0 and it’s not just because they’re both African American. Both guys used to coach the Vikings secondary and by all accounts Fraizer, like Tomlin, is extremely smart and tough. In other words he’s the exact opposite of Norv Turner.
Jim Harbaugh: The ideal choice in my opinion. He clearly has the coaching aptitude (his dad was a coach and he’s John Harbaugh’s brother). The way he coached up USD at first and now Stanford shows that he can get his teams to over perform. He has obvious San Diego connections and his DUI history may convince AJ Smith to re-sign Vincent Jackson (just kidding).
In all seriousness, there will be a glut of great coaching candidates out there this offseason. If you figure teams like the Cowboys, Frisco, Denver the Browns and Minnesota are in the market for a big-time coach the Chargers could sneak in there grab a dark horse candidate and potentially snatch better coach. It’s like going from an ugly girl to a girl that’s a little prettier. It’s the smart move. It’s a move that someone like Norv Turner would never make.
Darko Milicic is obviously the impetus of this post.
For those who haven’t noticed (and judging by the coverage it has received, how haven’t you noticed?), Milicic has found himself of late in Minnesota, averaging 16.5 points, 8.3 rebounds, 4.0 blocks and 3.5 assists per game over his last six games while shooting over 50 percent. He’s also leading the NBA in blocked shots at 2.9 per game overall. Darko Milicic. Darko. Milicic.
But although Milicic and his newfound production is the biggest gut-punch, he’s far from the only recent Piston benchwarmer to suddenly figure things out in another location. In fact, there are quite a few of them floating around the league now, enough to form a pretty intriguing (and cheap) starting five.
Former Pistons have been so good (or at least better than I thought they’d be), in fact, that I’ve recently been wondering: could this hypothetical starting five of former Pistons make the playoffs in the Eastern Conference?
Here’s my lineup:
Billups is the no-brainer of the group. The perception of Billups at the time he was dealt was that he had at least plateaued as a player, if not started a decline.
Well, as his tenure in Denver has shown, stories of his decline were greatly exaggerated. He’s still one of the top PGs in the league, an effective leader/locker room presence and he even posted a career-high season in scoring last year at age 33. There are limitations to Billups’ game (he still struggles some defensively against quick point guards), but I have no doubts that he could still lead a team to the playoffs.
There were signs that Afflalo was going to be a late first round steal when he was in Detroit. He was well known for his work ethic at UCLA and the Pistons also praised him throughout his first two seasons in the league for always working hard in practice even if he wasn’t being rewarded with consistent playing time.
Afflalo was traded to Denver in a cost cutting move and deemed expendable because the team signed Ben Gordon and extended Rip Hamilton. All Afflalo has done is turn into one of the best 3-point shooters in the league, plays solid defense and his .631 true shooting percentage this season is nearly identical to Gordon’s (.632) and it’s a higher mark than Hamilton has ever had in his career for only a fraction of the cost of either of those players.
Delfino is the super athletic and versatile wing off the bench the Pistons really could’ve used during every season of the Flip Saunders era. And unfortunately, Delfino was right there on the bench, ready to get an opportunity, that whole time. He never stayed in the rotation in Detroit for long and was sent to Toronto in a deal for a future second rounder.
Delfino had a solid season with the Raptors, played one season in Russia, then re-emerged as a starter on a playoff team in Milwaukee last season. Delfino isn’t elite in any one facet of the game, but he can shoot, slash to the basket, defend and pass reasonably well.
For a late second round pick, Johnson has had a good career already. Most guys picked where he was selected don’t last long in the NBA, and Johnson is now on his third NBA contract. Detroit spent several seasons developing him, hoping he’d become a rotation player. In his final season in Detroit, he briefly started for the Pistons, then disappeared from the rotation, then made a few cameo appearances the rest of the season before getting traded to Milwaukee, who spun him to Toronto for (interestingly) the rights to Delfino.
In Toronto, Johnson has had the same problem that plagued him in Detroit: he fouls too much. But he’s also played consistent minutes.
Johnson can’t be counted on to be a 35-minute-per-game big man at this point, but for 20-25 minutes a game, he’ll play with energy, he’ll shoot a really high percentage, you’ll never have to run a play for him, he’ll rebound and he’ll block shots.
This season, he’s averaging 8.7 points, 5.5 points and 1.1 blocks per game in 20.1 minutes while shooting nearly 60 percent.
He doesn’t have the major upside many thought he did (Matt Watson, I’m looking at you) in Detroit, but he’s become a solid rotation big man who, if he continues this level of production, will be worth the contract many scoffed at when he re-signed in Toronto.
As stated above, Darko has been a terror over the last six games after a miserable start to the season. Personally, I don’t want to live in a world where Milicic is a good NBA player. Or one where David Kahn makes a good signing. But we have to face facts: if Milicic produces near this level throughout the life of his contract, he’s going to be one of the best values in the NBA.
And remember: for as long as he’s been around, he’s only 25-years-old, and he’s still a young 25 since most of his NBA career has been spent glued to the bench in Detroit, Orlando, Memphis or New York.
There’s really no reasonable way to predict how this lineup would compete against other starting fives in the league. But (thanks to Dan Feldman for putting running all the numbers in his spreadsheets), we can at least see, based on Win Shares, how they compare.
Here are the Win Shares for my hypothetical starting lineup:
That lineup has produced 4.2 total Win Shares. League average for most common starting fives used by each NBA team is 5.9 Win Shares, so this hypothetical group of starters currently would be 23rd in the league in that department. Not good, although they are better than the Pistons most common starting five, which has 3.1 combined Win Shares.
Another thing to keep in mind: Billups has started the season slow, and his total will almost certainly go up. Delfino has been injured, so he could go up as well and Darko started the season so poorly offensively that even his torrid offensive pace over the last six games still leaves him with a negative total of offensive Win Shares for the season. That could change if he keeps shooting the ball well.
Of course, Milicic and Johnson could both see their production decline significantly as well and this whole post will look really dumb in a few weeks when they fall back to Earth.
I’ll definitely be watching as the season goes on though and updating if necessary. In a lot of cases, the players who got away from the Pistons are becoming more significant stories in Joe Dumars’ legacy than the players who are here.
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By Chris Ballard
In proper journalistic endeavors, it’s considered important not to let your own opinions color what you write. Fortunately (at least, until ESPN or SI come a-knocking) that’s not something I need to worry about. So I can quite easily propose a system without worrying about my journalistic integrity. (All I have to worry about is snarky comments below, and anyway – I love those.) So, here they are: my rules for a coherent competition format! (insert drumroll if/where appropriate).
2. Unbalanced Schedule: Okay, calm down. Go with me on this. If you’re having a balanced schedule (here, I mean, one in which every team plays every other team home and away, like in 2010) then splitting the league into conferences makes no sense. Having a single table, in which it is obvious which team is the ‘best’, then renders the play-offs nothing more than icing on a cake. And as anybody who has eaten a lot of cake can attest, too much icing is bad thing and makes you vomit all over your grandmother’s new couch. I would suggest a schedule of playing each team in your own division home-and-home, with playing teams from the other conference just once. This would have the added bonus of making ‘glamor’ ties – particularly LA vs NY – that much rarer, which I think would enhance their appeal.
Round Two of Major League Soccer’s playoffs have ended and we are now down to the last four teams. We are also finished with home/away legs and from now on, it is “win or go home” for San Jose, Colorado, Dallas, and Los Angeles. For the second year in a row, the Eastern Conference champion will be a Western Conference team, but that is fodder for another post. Five of our pickers correctly got the outcome and score for the Los Angeles Galaxy/Seattle Sounders FC game. Once again Martin has come out on top for the week. His twenty points gave him a 1 point edge over ATD’s Fuse (the only one to correctly pick the Real Salt Lake/FC Dallas draw). Martin’s overall thirty-five points have placed him firmly out front to win our first Playoff Pick’Em contest. He’s not completely out of reach, however, so read on after the break to see if you can catch him…
Second Leg MLS Results
San Jose 3 – New York 1 (San Jose thru on Aggregate)
Colorado Rapids 1 – Columbus 2 (Colorado thru on Penalty Kicks)
Real Salt Lake 1 – FC Dallas 1 (Dallas thru on Aggregate)
Los Angeles Galaxy 2 – Seattle Sounders 1 (Los Angeles thru on Aggregate)
Pick’Em PLAYOFF RESULTS for 2nd Leg
| Martin | 20 |
| Fuse | 19 |
| Kevin | 14 |
| Sculptor | 13 |
| Adam | 13 |
| Ryan | 10 |
| Magnakai Haaskivi | 10 |
| jjf3 | 10 |
| KC GunnerWizard | 9 |
| GreenEggs | 7 |
| Epiblast | 7 |
OVERALL PLAYOFF RESULTS thru 2nd Leg
| Martin | 35 |
| Fuse | 29 |
| Sculptor | 23 |
| epiblast | 21 |
| Kevin | 21 |
| KC GunnerWizard | 19 |
| Magnakai Haaskivi | 19 |
| Green Eggs | 18 |
| Ryan | 18 |
| Adam | 18 |
| jjf3 | 17 |
| Bluesfan | 2 |
Both games are on television this weekend. I have to imagine that ESPN is hoping and praying for Los Angeles to continue their winning ways and help boost ratings for the MLS Cup game on November 21.
| Saturday, November 13 | ||||
| 9:30pm | San Jose Earthquakes @ Colorado Rapids | Fox Soccer Channel | ||
| Sunday, November 14 | ||||
| 9:00pm | FC Dallas @ Los Angeles Galaxy | ESPN/ESPN Deportes/ESPN3 | ||
San Jose Earthquakes @ Colorado Rapids
FC Dallas @ Los Angeles Galaxy
Don’t forget to pick an outcome and a score for each team. With twenty-one Pick’Em points still up for grabs everyone but Bluesfan (who missed Leg 2) is still mathematically in the hunt. So choose your winners and scores wisely and enjoy the games.
The MLS Playoffs have finished round one with no draws. Two of the home teams won and two of the away teams won. The second leg begins on Thursday again this week. For those playing for the “ATD Cap”, 50% still seems to be our percentage this year. Of the 28 points possible from the first leg, Martin currently has the lead with 15 points, followed closely by epiblast at 14 points. However, there are another 28 points possible this week and there are plenty of people within striking distance. Read on after the break to see how you did.
First Leg MLS Results
Colorado Rapids 1 – Columbus Crew 0
FC Dallas 2 – Real Salt Lake 1
New York Red Bulls 1 – San Jose Earthquakes 0
Los Angeles Galaxy 1 – Seattle Sounders 0
Pick’Em PLAYOFF STANDINGS after 1st Leg
| Martin | 15 |
| epiblast | 14 |
| Green Eggs | 11 |
| Sculptor | 10 |
| KC GunnerWizard | 10 |
| Fuse | 10 |
| Magnakai Haaskivi | 9 |
| Ryan | 8 |
| Kevin | 7 |
| jjf3 | 7 |
| Adam | 5 |
| Bluesfan | 2 |
Once again all games are going to be televised, but this week ESPN will be getting the two “big market” games of New York and Los Angeles. MLS’s website doesn’t indicate if ESPN Deportes is carrying the games as well, but they generally have in the past. Check your cable line-up to be sure. Also the MLS website doesn’t clarify what Regional TV is, so I am guessing that Colorado and/or Ohio may have the game in English, so check your local line-up on this as well. All times Eastern.
| Thursday, November 4 | ||||
| 8:30pm | San Jose Earthquakes @ New York Red Bulls | ESPN2/(ESPN Deportes?) | ||
| Saturday, November 6 | ||||
| 4:00pm | Colorado Rapids @ Columbus Crew | Telefutura/Regional TV | ||
| 10:00pm | FC Dallas @ Real Salt Lake | Fox Soccer | ||
| Sunday, November 7 | ||||
| 9:00pm | Seattle Sounders FC @ Los Angeles Galaxy | ESPN | ||
San Jose Earthquakes @ New York Red Bulls
Colorado Rapids @ Columbus Crew
FC Dallas @ Real Salt Lake
Seattle Sounders FC @ Los Angeles Galaxy
Don’t forget to pick an outcome and a score for each team. Quite a few people earned six or more points by correctly picking the right score for a team even though they got the outcome wrong.
Enjoy the playoffs everyone and good luck. (And don’t forget to vote today if you live in the USA…)
How bout those playoffs?
One leg down in each of the first round series (not going to call them “Conference Semifinals”), and every match-up is separated by a single goal. Last night’s Sounders-Galaxy game was entertaining (in part because of the atmosphere), New Yorks’ win in San Jose was a blast of a track meet of a soccer match, and those other two games had moments of their own. Real Salt Lake’s trek to Texas was certainly interesting, no? Pablo Mastroeni, a man with less than 10 goals in his entire career is the one that breaks the ice for Colorado?
And this is why playoffs have merit. As Major League Soccer’s dreadful TV ratings prove, building excitement with regular season games is difficult; imagine a league without a playoff tournament, where the best we could hope for is two teams near the top of the table meeting towards the end of the season. In a parity-driven league, there’s no guarantees that will happen, even with attempts at scheduling foresight.
There are just too many factors involved that make American soccer different for me to be comfortable with the idea that the playoffs should go away. If you’re convinced otherwise, I’d love to know how to excuse away the problems.
Not that I need to worry. The League doesn’t appear headed down the single-table road, even one that includes a post-season to cap things off. With expansion sure to cause problems with scheduling (meaning that a balanced schedule will soon be too cumbersome), single-table is a pipe dream. Moan about it all you want, but it doesn’t make sense after next year.
I’m pumped for the return legs. One goal leads are tenuous, the trailing teams have reason to push hard for goals, and the atmospheres will improve in every series save one (with apologies to San Jose fans, who while small in number thanks to a tiny stadium, do a decent job of making noise). And even then, the step down from Seattle’s 34k to LA’s 25k-ish isn’t especially steep. Red Bull Arena will host its first ever playoff game. Columbus will have the Nordecke behind them at Crew Stadium. RSL expects a sell out and has turned Rio Tinto into an absolute fortress. If you believe atmosphere is the most crucial element in selling the game to casual fans (which I do), we could do worse coming off of Sounders-Galaxy (i.e., the Gold Standard) in Seattle.
It’s difficult to pick out which return leg has the most potential; the two teams returning home with advantages (New York and LA) could sit back and attempt to stymie San Jose and Seattle respectively, but that strategy carries an element of danger. One mistake and the lead is gone, a situation that will force coaches on each side to make effective tactical decisions. We can’t expect either tilt to be “open”, but neither should they be drab affairs. Colorado-Columbus could very well turn ugly, but RSL-FCD should have the defending champions going for it from the start (without Javier Morales, unfortunately). Every game has a very real chance of giving us Bonus Soccer and the dreaded penalty shootout.
Some thoughts from the weekend matches (in no particular order, quick and dirty like):
