Sporting Madness

When I wrote a total conversion of Andrew Lloyd Webber's famed Jesus Christ Superstar rock opera about Denver Broncos' quarterback Tim Tebow, most of it fit surprisingly well. The issue, of course, was betrayal, though; while Tebow may be overhyped and overrated, it was difficult to imagine his own team turning against him, so I had to concoct a Spygatesque plot to get it to work. Truth remains stranger than fiction ( a surprisingly excellent movie , by the way), however, and the Broncos have just executed a stunning betrayal of Tebow (who did manage to lead them to a playoff win over Pittsburgh before getting crushed by New England), signing Peyton Manning to take over at quarterback . To that end, I've quickly rewritten the last three songs to reflect this new reality. Here they are, with Broncos' executive vice-president John Elway (the man who got the Manning deal done ) as Judas, Manning and ESPN analyst Mel Kiper (one of the most prominent Tebow critics) as Annas...

After weeks of waiting, it's finally time for the Super Bowl. As I wrote earlier, I love this matchup ; the spread's 2.5, and there's a good argument that it should be a pick-em. It's one of the closest Super Bowl games I've seen in some time, and that's what I emphasized in my predictions; as usual, I have a complete breakdown of the game over at The Good Point with Mark Milner , and I also have a shorter pick posted over at Robert Carnell's blog . For those just looking for a score, I'm going to go with Pittsburgh 24 , Green Bay 21. I also have a rundown of the CFL figures involved in the game over at 55-Yard Line . Finally, let's carry on from the conference championship games with a theme song for each team!

Two prominent cases involving NFL players have hit the headlines recently. First, current Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger was accused of sexual assault [ Will Brinson , NFL FanHouse ] for actions in the bathroom of a Georgia nightclub with a drunk 20-year-old college student. This, of course, was the second time in less than two years Roethlisberger faced similar accusations [ USA Today ]. . Second, former New York Giants star Lawrence Taylor was accused of third-degree rape this week regarding an incident in a small-town New York hotel room [ CBS ]. Both incidents present serious image problems for the NFL [ Scott Stinson , National Post ], especially when seen in the light of all the other off-field criminal incidents involving NFL players. However, there are significant differences between what happened in each case, and those are worth looking into. Despite compelling evidence that Roethlisberger may have forced himself on his accuser, he is currently fa...

The CFL draft is coming up [ Jaime Stein , CFL.ca ] this Sunday (noon Eastern, TSN). It's always an exciting time of the year, particularly from the perspective of watching CIS stars making the jump to the pros. To get you excited for it, here's an e-mail interview I just conducted with Shomari Williams , the Queen's defensive end who led the Gaels to the Vanier Cup this year and is ranked first overall by the CFL's scouting bureau. We talked about the CFL, CIS, the NCAA and his up-and-coming business helping recruits. My questions and his responses are below (slight edits for clarity). Andrew Bucholtz: You've made a pretty meteoric rise up the CFL Scouting Bureau rankings, from #15 at the start of last season to #4 in December to #1 earlier this year. Do you pay any attention to the rankings, and if so, what did it feel like to take over the top spot? Shomari Williams: It felt great being named the top prospect in Canada. I worked real hard all season and ...

The NFL had their annual draft last week (you can find a good breakdown of the first-round picks over at SB Nation ), which was interesting as usual. There were plenty of surprises, including the Raiders doing something logical (taking Rolando McClain , generally considered the best linebacker in the draft) with the eighth pick, the Jaguars going off the board with the 10th pick to take defensive end Tyson Alualu , the Broncos taking Demaryius Thomas (widely thought to not even be the best wide receiver in the draft) with the 22nd pick overall and then trading up to take Tim Tebow with the 25th pick, a quarterback many thought wouldn't go until the second or third round but a guy some Denver bloggers, including my Fanball comrade Bryan Douglass , are quite high on . All in all, it was a pretty entertaining few days. In order to really enjoy the NFL draft, though, you have to keep extensive tabs on a lot of prospects. It's fun, but it either takes a fair bit of effort or yo...

One of the side effects of SFU's decision to jump to NCAA Division II and UBC's subsequent decision to remain in CIS for the time being was the potential loss of CIS football's most storied games, the annual Shrum Bowl between the two teams. The Shrum Bowl has been contested 32 times over the years and always gets a fair bit of attention; everyone in the Lower Mainland knows about the UBC-SFU rivalry, and the annual football game has been one of its best expressions. Fortunately, as Howard Tsumura of The Province reports , that's going to continue for at least this year. Oddly enough, SFU's switch to the NCAA both threatened and preserved this year's game. The two teams will no longer meet in Canada West competition, but the Clan's departure left Canada West with only six football teams and forced a conference-wide bye on the Oct. 8-10 weekend. During that bye, the game will be played under the Friday night lights at UBC's Thunderbird Stadium on Oct....

A few weeks back, I wrote a post about how Madden players might just turn out to be decent NFL coaches (and also the surprising lack of time today's coaches spend in game situations). Seeing as it's unlikely that NFL teams are going to be hiring gamers any time soon, I thought I'd take a look at how those teams make their decisions on who their head coaches should be, and how backgrounds influence NFL coaches' success. This hopefully will provide some insight into what kind of head coaching candidates teams should consider and how this year's new hires ( Chan Gailey in Buffalo, Pete Carroll in Seattle and Mike Shanahan in Washington) might do. Now, coaching success can't be considered in a vacuum; the personnel coaches inherit have a lot to do with their success. Thus, I looked at how coaches do both in immediate turnarounds (so, the next season) and over the long term (their complete records), and I also looked at their backgrounds. I selected the last f...

It should be an interesting Super Bowl today; a clash between two high-powered offences, as well as two very different game philosophies. The Saints have a balanced attack and an incredibly aggressive defence, while the Colts' defence excels at limiting big plays and their offence is dominant in the passing game, but struggles to run the ball. You can find my full preview piece below , as well as other ones I wrote for Rob Carnell at Salt Water Music and Ryan Gallivan at The Gally Blog . Now, it's time for the prediction. Everyone has the Colts as big favourites, but I think this is overlooking a few things. For one, as Neil Paine points out, SRS (simple rating system, explained here ), which looks at teams' average margins of victory and their opponents' average ratings, is overwhelmingly in favour of the Saints. Yes, the Saints struggled against the Vikings in the NFC Championship game, but the Colts had issues with the New York Jets, a much less well-rounded t...

This year’s Super Bowl is more than just a battle between the New Orleans Saints and Indianapolis Colts; it’s also a clash of styles between the Colts’ pass-heavy offence and the Saints’ balanced attack. New Orleans was sixth in the league in rushing this year, averaging 131.6 yards per regular-season game, and fourth in passing, averaging 272.2 yards per game. The Colts were second in the NFL in passing yards per game, averaging 282.2 yards per game, but dead last in rushing, putting up only 80.9 yards on the ground. The Colts’ rushing game hasn’t improved by the numbers in the playoffs, as they’re still only averaging 2.9 yards per attempt and 71.5 yards per game. However, those stats are somewhat deceiving. The Colts got nowhere on the ground against the Baltimore Ravens in the divisional round, putting up only 44 yards on 23 carries, but that game was out of hand early and the Colts were often running just to control the clock. Against the notably effective rushing defence of the...

This story from Aaron Wilson of The National Football Post about the accusations of domestic violence against St. Louis Rams' running back Steven Jackson is horrifying. According to the piece(which picks up on a TMZ report), Jackson allegedly attacked his girlfriend, Supriya Harris , in March 2009. She was nine months pregnant at the time and gave birth 10 days later. Here's the key part: "In a complaint filed with the Las Vegas police department, Harris claimed: "Steven became enraged and pushed me to the ground, repeatedly." And she alleged that the Rams runner: "forcibly grabbed my arm and flung me against the door. I was crying and trying to protect my stomach from the blows, as I was 9 mos pregnant. .. continued to shove me against the door until his nephew ... interceded and yelled, 'uncle, she has a baby, stop.'" Harris said she was "bleeding heavily," after being smashed into a door handle." This is a horrifyin...

Who will face the Colts in this year's Super Bowl? Join me in the live blog below to find out! NFC Championship Live Blog

I'll be live-blogging today's games shortly, but first I thought I'd put up some predictions. Both these games could go either way, like anything in the playoffs, so these are just idle thoughts, not guarantees. If you want something with a better chance of success, check out Peter Pattakos ' picks over at Cleveland Frowns ; he's 8-0 so far these playoffs! With that out the way, let's get to the games. AFC: New York Jets at Indianapolis Colts: The Colts were a dominant team during the regular season. They went 14-2, and weren't particularly trying in the games they lost (one against the Jets). Meanwhile, Jets' head coach Rex Ryan thought they were eliminated at one point, and they only snuck into the playoffs on the last day. The Colts also beat their curse of resting starters with last weekend's win over the Ravens, so there's lots of logical reasons to pick them. However, I'm not going to. For one thing, small athletic teams like the ...