Forget NFL Conspiracy Theories
Friday - November 11, 2009
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Del.icio.us“It’s obvious now,” claimed a recent caller to my morning radio show. “The NFL is definitely fixed.”
The evidence? A recent game in which Oakland knocked off Philadelphia. While I wouldn’t argue that this was an upset and would further agree that the Raiders are a bad football team while the Eagles are a good one, it is quite a leap to conclude that the outcome was engineered. Yet every autumn the conspiracy theorists can be heard bellowing about fixed games.
Of course, most of the sound and fury comes from gamblers on the wrong side of the final score. But you have to ask one critical question: Who benefits?
Certainly not the league itself. The NFL has become a cash cow for its owners. About the only thing that could derail the greenback express would be evidence that the integrity of play was compromised. The players make so much money that you couldn’t pay them enough to risk the loss of career and the likelihood of jail time to influence the outcome of a game.
That leaves the officials, who are very closely monitored and graded on every call they make. The NBA was able to discern very quickly when renegade official Tim Donaghy went over to the dark side. Las Vegas knows within minutes when irregular betting patterns occur.
Keep your money in your pocket and it’s much easier to see the stark truth: Good teams occasionally come out flat and bad teams sometimes make plays. That’s how you get upsets and why the NFL is so entertaining to watch.
Finally, the baseball season has come to an end.
While we just saw a very entertaining World Series, it now extends to the 11th month. Do we now have to redefine the Fall Classic MVP as Mr. November? Seems like there ought to be a way to be able to wrap things up in October. While the series weather wasn’t too bad, you could have had serious cold or even snow, which is hardly the proper showcase for the Boys of Summer.
It seems like the wave of injuries that has affected the UH football team is almost contagious. Hawaii has lost offensive starters Greg Alexander, Malcolm Lane, Rodney Bradley, Royce Pollard and Laupepa Letuli.
On defense, they have lost for all or part of the season Brashton Satele, Fetaiagogo Fonoti, Aaron Brown, Vaughn Meatoga, Jeremy Bryant and Richard Torres. That’s a huge number of impact players.
And then consider the Rainbow Warrior basketball team, where Bob Nash has had as many as eight players afflicted by injury, though at present none is expected to be down for very long. And that will be helpful because Hawaii opens this week with three games in four days. They’ll play Southern Utah on Friday, McNeese State Sunday and Northern Colorado at 11 p.m. Monday.
Looking for the exciting newcomer?
Check out shooting guard Dwain Williams, who is probably about 5-foot-10 but has all the moves and shooting range to 25 feet. When he gets it going, he can score points in bunches.
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