Timed Out

Normally, I compose my blogs with a bit of pressure. My time frames vary, dependent upon a number of influencing factors. Some are sports-related, as a certain event may not happen until later in the week, so I might write about it after it is concluded. Other times, I usually write knowing that I will be done with the blog on either a Friday or Saturday. 

Some of my time frames are determined by the availability of my always reliable editor. That person has a personal life that is far more important than the blog. Thus, I try to squeeze my writing in so that there is ample time for the editing to occur. 

I have been advised by my editor that a vacation looms beginning on Friday. Given what I owe already in promises, I heed that admonition and I am drafting this blog with the timing  definitely in mind. 

It certainly does not mean that I won’t have enough to discuss. It isn’t like I am going to break down why the Brooklyn Nets are losing with Kevin Durant and James Harden on the sidelines. Nor am I going to distinguish why a recently consummated Ben Simmons for Harden deal now would be foolish for Brooklyn, which is already a dysfunctional team that rookie Head Coach Steve Nash is desperately trying to keep above water until his Big 3 are healthy (which includes Simmons’ mental state) and in shape and shooting combo/guard/ forward Joe Harris is also back from his injury, now joined by Steph Curry’s brother, Seth, an able marksman himself. Nope, not going there. It is too detailed for the time I have. 

I have seen little about the Winter Olympics, although it is one of the top stories on NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt. The most I have seen was at 6:30 Wednesday morning when I went for the umpteenth session of physical therapy for my balky right hamstring. 

I won’t bore you with the falls of ace downhill skier Mikaela Shiffrin, putting her out of the competition in the first two events. Just like I won’t get into detail about Team USA losing to its arch rival, Team Canada, in Women’s Hockey preliminary competition. Despite raining over 50 shots on the Canadian goalie. Nothing to say there either. 

I cannot get into detail about the luge performance by Natalie Geisenberger of Germany. She has won individual performances three times, which have caused many to anoint her as the G.O.A.T. of her sport. I certainly don’t have time to debate that. I wonder if, after she retires, she is asked by a reporter on her own podcast, just like Tom Brady this week, if she plans to return to competition. I cannot hazard a guess that she might say, like Brady, that you can never say never. I hardly know of the woman. 

I cannot say that I can understand the schizophrenic nature of the Rutgers’ Men’s Basketball team. They can be horrible on the road for stretches of time, then come roaring back to make a game of a seemingly lost contest. Yet they absolutely dominated a highly-ranked Michigan State team with ferocious defense and a potent offense. Wednesday tenacious defense shut down Ohio State during an improbable 10-0 run to finish the game with a win. Paul Mulcahy has become a force for this team, and Geo Baker and Ron Harper, Jr. are maddeningly inconsistent. But I cannot analyze the psyche of this group because I am not clinically trained or licensed to make an assessment as to how the team might fare the rest of the season and if they have a prayer of making the NCAA Tournament. I am at an impasse on this subject. 

Just how unstoppable have the Golden State Warriors become since the return of Klay Thompson? He has started to lead the team in scoring, and Jonathan Kuminga has taken on a role off of the bench which injects youth and athleticism into the Warriors already potent game. This is without me mentioning that they have Steph Curry and his three point bombs, sharpshooting All Star forward Andrew Wiggins and Jordan Poole, who subs in with his long-range accuracy. Who knows what this team will really be like when Draymond Green finally returns from his ongoing calf injury and James Wiseman is fully healed from his knee injury?

How could I possibly find the time or space to get into that sort of prognosticating? 

Or must I try to figure how good the UConn Women’s Basketball team might be if Paige Bueckers returns this season? Having knocked off some pretty good teams lately, including Tennessee, thus creeping back into the Top Ten, is UConn a sleeper for South Carolina and Stanford to face? Too early to ponder that possibility, especially after their incredible conference winning streak came to end courtesy of Villanova. 

Instead, I have to work fast here. I have to ignore how the 1.5 hour wait I had for the MRI which I endured on Wednesday afternoon. So, too, do I need to not think about the salty pizza with very little sauce which I ingested on National Pizza Day. Plus I must put aside my fears that my 13+ year old Pontiac SUV with over 119,000 miles on it and with a suspect transmission, now has  a real issue when it chugged along the streets on Wednesday and produced a very acrid smell once I maneuvered it safely into my driveway. 

Let me get my focus readjusted despite all of these distractions. Let me not delve into the ongoing head coach hirings in the NFL, which included one who is of mixed ethnicity and the return of Love Smith, once the leader in Chicago and still beloved by Michael Wilbon of ESPN’s Pardon The Interruption. Brian Flores’ lawsuit persists. The aura of a hostile workplace in Washington remains. Whatever Roger Goodell said at his open air State of the NFL presser in Los Angeles on Wednesday can remain open to conjecture. It might warrant an essay on the subject—which I am loathe to do given my time constraints. 

There is a Super Bowl coming to you this weekend from what may be record-breaking heat at So-Fi Stadium. Then again, there may be a truck convoy, just like one lining the streets of Ottawa this week, protesting COVID restrictions on truckers between the U.S and Canada. I am no expert on that debate and I am extraordinarily glad that my wife, son and I did visit the Canadian capital in January, 2019 when the New Jersey Devils visited, unlike the team’s trip on this Monday night amidst the gridlock. I am not getting into geo-political discourse on this matter in the limited time I am given. 

I am not going to offer a score prediction for the Super Bowl because I would have to devote much statistical information to back up any conclusion I may draw. That’s not gonna work here. 

I have this belief that the AFC was better than the NFC this season. Just like I have a belief that no matter how good teams from the Big Ten are in football and basketball, they are not going to win national championships. If you want analytics to support these suppositions, I am not going to provide such in this forum. 

Is youngster Joe Burrows, with the incredible swagger, better than the homesteading veteran Matthew Stafford, as two number one overall selections lead their respective teams in the title game? Is the Rams defense that special, with All-Everything Aaron Donald and Von Miller assaulting Burrows and making him throw quicker lest he be sacked repeatedly like he was in Tennessee? 

Does Stafford have an arsenal of receivers like Odell Beckham, Jr. and Cooper Kupp who he can rely on to haul in deep throws while making exciting gains on the short tosses, thus avoiding the crucible of interceptions which has been a bane of the Rams QB’s career? How can I predict what might occur here? 

My bigger worry is that there might be a sizable snowfall on Sunday. This would ruin my first invite to a Super Bowl party in eons. Forecasters are unwilling to give totals at this juncture. I am not going to look at the data offered by the Euro model and be brave enough to predict what might befall the East Coast on Super Bowl Sunday. I would run out of time with that meteorological uptake. 

Let me end with two things. ESPN began an anthology on Monday nights on the ACC Network entitled The Tournament. For college basketball junkies like me, it is must see TV. Many memories are rekindled and new information is elicited. I am not going to critique this because I can’t. Not enough time to do it accurately. 

For my time is up. I am thinking of “Time” by Pink Floyd. Or “Time In A Bottle” by Jim Croce. Perhaps “Time After Time” from Cyndy Lauper? Then there is the classic “Time Is On My Side” by the Rolling Stones. Plus many more songs with time in the title to choose from. 

Time for me and my editor to take a time out.