Sports Crumbs -- 11/8/06

-- How good are the Indianapolis Colts? With convincing wins on the road over Denver (6-2) and New England (6-2) the Colts pushed their record to 8-0 and are the only undefeated team in the NFL after Chicago's shocking loss at home to the Dolphins. The Colts offense is still clicking along at a high rate with Peyton Manning leading the air show, but the defense has been the big question mark as it is every year. The Colts' run defense has been much maligned this season and for good reason. They rank dead last in the NFL in yards allowed, giving up an amazing 165 yards a game through 8 games. They are giving up 5.3 yards a rushing attempt! They saying goes, "Defense wins championships", but I don't think that will hold true this year because of the Colts' performance in the last 2 games. First going to Denver, a team that had allowed only 2 offensive TDs in the first 6 games, and putting up 31 points in the victory and then going and playing and beating his archenemies, Tom Brady and the New England Patriots, in Foxboro were 2 huge statement wins. Now with a 2 game advantage in the standings and 3 games if you include tiebreakers, it looks like all roads will go through Indy to get to the Super Bowl in the AFC. Will their offense be able to carry them to Miami and Super Bowl XLI? I'd put my money on Peyton's laser, rocket arm any day.

-- And at the other extreme, we have the Oakland Raiders. Now they may not have the worst record in the league, Arizona sits at 1-7 while Houston, Miami, Detroit, Pittsburgh, Tennessee, Cleveland and Tampa Bay all sit at 2-6 along with Oakland, but they are easily the most dysfunctional team in the league and are headed no where. At least most of those teams on the list have some young talent and are in some stage of rebuilding. In Oakland, it is hard to name one marquee player in his prime besides Lamont Jordan and Randy Moss, but after he dropped as many passes as he caught on Monday night, I don't know if Moss even belongs in that category. This team is simply wretched and needs to be blown up and completely rebuilt. Brady Quinn, welcome to Oakland!

-- Now on to a little Golf for your ass. Paul Azinger was announced as the new Ryder Cup captain for the 2008 Ryder cup at Valhalla, Kentucky. Azinger has already stirred things up by changing how players make the team (now it will go off of the money list for the current year of the cup, not the 2 year system currently in place) and only 8 players will automatically make the team, giving Azinger 2 additional captains picks. This is the exact kind of shake-up the US team needed to try to get back on track against those pesky Euro's in one of golf's most exciting events. Azinger also made some comments about the world's best player, Tiger Woods that were right on target. Azinger said Tiger was "in it to make history" and is such an individual player, "he doesn't like to share" with his teammates. He also said that he isn't a "natural born leader of 12 guys", but just needs the right partner, not just someone he gets along with, but someone who won't be intimidated playing with him. Azinger is right on target with all of his comments on Woods. Woods is by far and away the greatest golfer on the planet and maybe all time, but the team game just doesn't suit him. Why? Well, when he plays by himself, he can get himself out of the trouble he gets into. Not all his playing partners, much less many people in the world can hit the shots he can and get out of those situations so it makes for a difficult situation. Hopefully, Azinger can work his magic for the US and get us out our Ryder Cup funk and back onto our winning ways.

HC