NFC West 2015

And.....Here we go again folks!  The NFC West will once again be the premier conference to watch in the NFL, just as it was last year.  The aging Manning's and Brady era will continue to age and then fade away if those organizations don't start propagating new talent to take their place and lead these teams.  It's called Brand Management Destruction to build a brand around one player and not do the Due Diligence to find another source of branding to act as a supplement for their main effort, growing and collecting an audience so that when the day comes for Tom Brady to retire, the organization does not tank with his departure.

Free Fantasy Football 2015
Seattle Sea Chickens

The Seattle Sea Chickens had a great year last year, winning the Super Bowl, and driving home the idea that they had a program that was on the rise, except, so did the Houston Texans when they made their run for title in their rookie season, and then went flat for the next three years after.  In fact, it seems that most of the teams that win the Super Bowl either lose players, or the players themselves lose their hunger for the title the following year.  Hopefully for Seattle, their team does not go the same route as the Texans or the USC Trojans, as their coach Pete Carroll, who has shot the team into meteorite noteriety has been in this position before, and each of the teams he has coached to this level has fallen into the sphere of 5 year irrelevancy.


 
Fantasy Football is Back! 
San Francisco 49ers

Having had a better year last year than most teams, and beating the Seattle Seahawks at the end of the season, the 49ers, are on the rise.  Colin Kaepernick is back, Michael Crabtree is back, Aldon Smith and his brother from another mother Justin Smith are back, as well as Anquan Boldin, the trash talking receiver that mentally destroys his competition with thrashing output is back.    I have the 49ers winning the NFC West this year, but, having to fight Arizona and Seattle in nail biting, jaw clenching games of sheer brute force trauma.


Arizona Cardinals

Drew Stanton is preparing to lead a team that is an under ranked 11 seed in the race for the 2015 Super Bowl win.  The Arizona Cardinals have been making steady gains the past few years and are now in the position of being a variable opponent, with nobody having any idea if they are going to beat them or not.  With growth as a team comes a need for consistency, which is where you end up immediately after a decade of reorganization has taken place.  Now that the Arizona Cardinals are out of the NFL sandbox, there will be a much bigger focus on building a franchise of consistent high placement.  I look to the Arizona Cardinals to be the first team to draw first blood with the Seattle Seahawks, followed by the 49ers, and then Baltimore.

The Raiders Move

If you live in Oakland, CA, you are, undoubtedly a Raiders Fan.  The Oakland Raiders have built a fan base over the years that is by far unique in its intensity, stemming from the raving lunatics that show up at their games, extremist fans, that would walk through hell if the team was on a road trip there.  A fan base that took decades to build, and could now come crashing down, to be replaced with a location that has never had a Professional Football team, and is flanked by two powerhouse fan bases in Houston and Dallas with the Texans and the Cowboys.

To the north in Dallas, the Cowboys could lose every game for the next decade and still be one of the richest franchises on earth.  Why?  because of the marketing of the brand, Cowboy fans, apparel, bumper stickers, jeep wheel coverings, and gear is everywhere, and especially in Texas, which happens to be the second largest state in the U.S. behind Alaska, which has a tenth of the population in Texas.

In the South of Texas lays the fan base fertility zone with Houston and the new Oilers team, called the Texans.  This team would have made another loud splash in the Gulf of Mexico had it not been for the Cinderella first season where the Texans did such a great job in playing and raising the stakes in fan manipulation that its stock shot through the roof, and loyal fans became a fixture in the stadium for each and every game.  It probably helps that the Texans only real competitor in Houston is the Astros, which haven't done anything worth writing about in 20 years.  Google does not have a definition for Oilers or Astros, they have to be added to the dictionary for your computer before they turn black from the unknown red underline, to help with the notion that these two teams are irrelevant in the sports world.

So, what are the pros and cons with moving the much propaganda gangland team from Oakland to San Antonio?


Pros:
1.  No more gangland propaganda reputation as a bunch of thugs that used to play on the Alcatraz all stars before joining the NFL.
2.  Putting a team in San Antonio swallows up ten economies to include Austin, the capital of Texas, who's only claim to Sports fame is a reorganized and newly coached Texas Longhorns.
3.  Yep, that's it.

Cons:
1.  The San Antonio who?  No fan base, tons of Spurs fans, no history, no apparel, no marketing, and most importantly, NO STADIUM!  So, this would be a start up franchise with no foundation, in an area that doesn't have a football reputation, coming out of bad economy, which means prices will be high, the hotdog will be attempted to be sold at $6 with ketchup and mustard an extra .$75 per packet.
2.  Team is dead in the water in 5 years, and after each of the banks in the area have loaned out every dead cent available.

My advice.  Leave the team in Oakland, invest in the infrastructure of the Raiders name, and build a fan base that has more legs than the striped members of Folsom Prison.

NFL Postseason Matchups: Ravens vs. Patriots

New England has everything, they have a great defense, and the best offensive game in the AFC.  That being said, how do the Ravens have a chance at beating them?  One method may be to make them play sideline to sideline.  While this method wears out the linemen faster than any other play book in football, it also makes teams play their bench, to give the line a rest more often.  Baltimore has a better bench than New England, that is for sure, with much more depth than the other.  Sideline to sideline wearing out the endurance and stamina of the line.

So what does Baltimore have to do to help themselves to a Superbowl?  Ray Lewis and his band of merry men have to make Tom Brady less accurate, and the way to do that is to rapidly close the pocket around him.  It was seen and proven in the Texas game, that when Tom Brady is hurried and/or has to scramble out of the pocket, his accuracy goes dramatically down, spirally into the depths of garbage.

New England 28
Baltimore 17

Get PAID like a Professional Football player

NFL Postseason Matchups: 49ers vs. Falcons

Definitely going to be touted as one of the most evenly matched teams to meet in the NFC Championship.

49ers - Frank Gore on the running game coupled with LaMichael James is one of the best running games in the industry.  Colin Kaepernick is the real deal, with weapons such as Randy Moss, Michael Crabtree, Vernon Davis, and Walker to round out the offensive threat. Defensively, the Smith brothers are back together, causing havoc and keeping half the offensive lines completely pre-occupied, so much so that opposing QB's have to look out for Patrick Willis coming straight up the middle one-on-one with the lethal linebacker.

Falcons - Also have the multi threat capability, but are more dependent on the air game than the run game.  Matt Ryan is a veteran and has the experience to put any team to the test, especially since the Falcons are the number one seed in the playoffs, stemming from an impeccable season.  I see the Falcons keeping the chip on their shoulder from not getting the respect they have earned throughout the season, and coming in with a large amount of vengeance.

It will be a great game, and a defensive battle.

49ers - 35
Falcons - 31

Own your own business
Living with focus and motivation

Concussive Diagnosis of Players in Contact sports

Its a matter of cause and effect.  If a defensive football player hits an offensive player so hard that the person blacks out, throws up, loses his balance, or any of the myriad symptoms of a concussion, then the offensive player MAY have a concussion.  I say MAY because I am not a doctor, and therefore can't make diagnosis of what is going on with the player.

In recent months, the importance of focusing on concussions, with spear focus on Football players, is a good thing, and it puts the right light on organizations protecting the players from successive blows to the head that MAY lead to further brain damage.

But what about Hockey, Rugby, Lacrosse, Soccer? Basketball?  There are times where each and every sport, minus maybe Bowling, which I am not really sure is a fully fledged sport, that contact is going to be made between players.  A spike in Volleyball has a leather bound ball flying through the air at 70 mph with the possibility of hitting an inanimate target human head.

Get Motivated!

The biggest point of this article stems from the study of Junior Seau's brain, which analysts have laid the blame of his suicide on repeated hits to the head.

The brain, or the study of it, called neurology is a science of unknown proportions.  This, in layman's terms means that the whole science is full of unknowns, making a diagnosis of suicide due to defensive lineman hits to the head, completely false.

Could repeated hits to the head have contributed?  Sure.  Could a bunch of other factors have contributed to the suicide, absolutely.  The only surefire way of finding out why a person takes their life into their own hands, is to ask that person, and unfortunately, and with all of today's technology, we still can't make the dead talk.

AXIS OF EVIL BY SUICIDE COMMANDO (CD) (Google Affiliate Ad)
Kids, Sports, and Concussion By Meehan, William (Google Affiliate Ad)
Concussion in Sports By Meehan, William P./ Micheli, Lyle J. (Google Affiliate Ad)
The Concussion Crisis By Carroll, Linda/ Rosner, David (Google Affiliate Ad)

NFL Post Season Matchups: Colts vs. Ravens

While I like to see the wild card games, the most interesting matchups between NFL teams comes before the playoffs.

Indianapolis vs. Baltimore

Ray Lewis is back and the Baltimore Ravens now have something to be motivated by and play for.  The news that this will be the last season for Lewis may mean that the Ravens want to send him off with a Superbowl.  Injuries and motivation are common with Baltimore as well as a slackening of the small details as the season progresses.  Andrew Luck and the Colts, however, are the opposite.  As the postseason heats up, so do the Colts, aided by the hottest rookie QB and the return of Chuck Pagano, the Colts are expected to be sluggish in the first half, and then explode in the second half.  For Indianapolis to seal the deal, the whole team concept has to come to bear with defense creating turnovers, and the offense turning small yards into large yardage gains.

At three minutes left in the game, it is very apparent that Andrew Luck came to play, but his receivers came to drop.  Thrown to multiple receivers, and out of five tosses, four are either dropped, or hit in the hands for incomplete passes.

Up your game!
Superbowl Travel Deals

EA Madden NFL 2013 PS3 19734 (Google Affiliate Ad)TMC NFL-GBP-893 Neon Helmet Lamp-Packers (Google Affiliate Ad)Nba, Mlb, Nfl Gear Men Oakland Raiders Varsity Jacket - Outerwear (Google Affiliate Ad)Nba, Mlb, Nfl Gear Men New York Yankees Wool Zip Jacket - Outerwear (Google Affiliate Ad)Nba, Mlb, Nfl Gear Men Brooklyn Nets Tigerland Track Jacket (Google Affiliate Ad)Nba, Mlb, Nfl Gear Men Kevin Boss Nfl Jersey - Shirts (Google Affiliate Ad)Nba, Mlb, Nfl Gear Men Oklahoma City Thunder Wool Rev0 Reversible (Google Affiliate Ad)