tonytalkssports My Take on Sports, particularly the Yankees, Maple Leafs and Browns

Tuesday’s Thoughts

While thinking about fifteen years ago last Friday when Biggie Smalls was gunned down, here's what is on my mind this morning:

* The Maple Leafs are in Florida to take on the Southeast leading Panthers. I would imagine that Jonas Gustavsson will be back in the net once again for the Leafs. It's amazing how improved defensive zone coverage helps a goalie gain his confidence.

* Will the Leafs score a goal tonight and what period will it be in?

* Here's three stats that need to be improved upon next year by the Leafs: 1.) The Leafs are 8-12 on Saturday nights and half of those wins came in October. 4-1 in October, 1-2 November, 0-3 December, 1-2 January, 1-3 February and 1-1 in March. 2.) The Leafs are 16-13-6 at home. Randy Carlyle has said that his team needs to make the ACC a tough place to play. In contrast, Washington is 23-10-3 and Winnipeg is 21-10-4. 3.) The Leafs are 7-12-0 within the division and 0-5 against Boston. This is the worst record in the Northeast Division.

* Three players I hope are not on the Leafs roster next year are: Colby Armstrong, Matthew Lombardi and Tim Connolly. The first two could happen. I don't see anyone willing to take Connolly.

* During the Leaf-Flyers game on Saturday, Damien Cox tweeted that he wouldn't be surprised if Jaroslav Halak was in a Leaf uniform. Hmmmmmm....I wonder what it would take to get him???

* Phil Hughes and CC Sabathia looked good on Sunday afternoon and Hiroki Kuroda pitched well last night (even though he wasn't satisfied with his own performance). While it's still early, the guy I'm worried about is Ivan Nova. I like the kid but he has not looked good so far, particularly his last outing. He starts tonight against Boston.

* What's up with David Robertson??? How much money do you make and your moving boxes?? Really??? Fortunately for the Yanks the injury was not that serious.

* Bernie Williams will be at Yankee camp today and it made me think: when are the Yankees going to honor their center fielder from the late 90's glory years?? While plenty of attention has been given to the Core Four (now the Core Two), Williams has been the forgotten man. He too came up from the Yankee farm system and was a key contributor to the Yankees success.

* It is going to be real interesting where Peyton Manning ultimately lands for the 2012 NFL season. I thought that Miami had the inside track but it appears that Denver may be the team. In that division, the Broncos could win with Manning and the stable of receivers that they have along with Willis MaGahee. Their defense is pretty good too. However, its definitely not a warm weather location. Arizona might be a good fit also. Clearly the NFC West is very winnable and the Cardinals do have Larry Fitzgerald. However the word was that Manning wanted to stay in the AFC. This will be the most watched process in NFL free agency history.

* Yesterday afternoon Schopp & The Bulldog were all pissed off because the Bills came out and said they were not in the Manning sweepstakes. The two WGR windbags felt that the Bills owed their fans to at least invite Manning for an interview. Oh ok I get it so then when Manning says no thank you these two morons can either bad mouth the Bills for not getting him or bad mouth Manning. This is the problem with the Buffalo sports media: they raise expectations and get all of the Chester Cheektowagas & Louie Lackawannas fired up and then when the bottom falls out the GR loudmouths are all pissed off because people are calling in screaming bloody murder.

* By the way, I also had to hear about Schopp's ride back home from his vacation. Pleeeassee!!!!!!!!!!

* The report on the New Orleans Saints bounty system has rocked the NFL. It was pretty funny last week watching Mike Golic trying to defend the Saints. What's even more funny is that the whole issue of bounties being placed on quarterbacks and star players goes back many years. The Buffalo Bills back in the late 60's had a bounty on Joe Namath when the Jets came to the Old Rockpile. The Oakland Raiders were also in on the act when it came to Namath. For media people around the NFL to feign disbelief over the whole situation is hypocritical since they had to know what was going on. Kind of like baseball media not knowing that steroids was going on in the late 90's.

* More importantly than the media knowing what was going on with bounties, I find it hard to believe that the NFL didn't know about it either. Kind of like Major League Baseball with steroids.

* Somehow I'm having a hard time seeing Randy Moss playing for Jim Harbaugh. Good luck to Alex Smith too. So they replace Braylon Edwards with Moss. Hmmmmmmm.

* If the Browns do not make a free agent signing to strengthen their offensive line and linebacking corp I'm going to go absolutely wild!!!

* Glad to hear that long-time Browns beat writer Tony Grossi will be hooking up with ESPN Radio WKNR 850 in Cleveland and will be covering the team once again. The Cleveland Plain Dealer booted Grossi off the Browns beat because of a tweet that Grossi made which called Randy Lerner a jerk. Grossi apologized but it is obvious that the team went to the newspaper and voiced its concern. Grossi is knowledgeable and is critical but fair as it relates to the Browns. It will be interesting to see if Sportstime Ohio brings Grossi back on its Browns related shows during the season.

* March Madness begins and what's up with a 12th seed and 14th seed play-in game???

* How Drexel didn't make the Big Dance is a classic example of the bias against mid-major schools. The Dragons were 27-5 and they have been left out. If they were 31-1 and lost their conference tourney would they still be out???

* There isn't one number one seed in the tournament that is a lock to be in the Final Four.

* The revelation that Syracuse University's basketball team violated its own drug policy further damages Jim Boeheim's reputation. It will be awfully hard for him to claim he knew nothing about it like he did with the whole Bernie Fine mess.

* I was remiss in not acknowledging the passing of Gary Carter. What I found truly amazing was the impact that Carter had in Canada, particularly in Montreal. The fact that the Montreal Canadiens honored Carter at one of its games shows how much he was thought of in La Belle Province.

* And finally, congratulations to St. Bonaventure for winning the Atlantic 10 Conference Tournament. The Bonnies are the number 14 seed in the East Region and will meet a tough Florida State team. I wonder what wizard Brad Ritter has to say about that. It was Ritter back in 2005 who dismissed Niagara's winning of the MAAC Tournament as not a big deal because they were going to be knocked out of the NCAA Tournament in their first game. Nothing like promoting the local schools.