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Ranking the Patriots Super Bowl Calls

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We talked about it on The 300s Podcast this week, and I think the time has come to rank the game-winning calls from the five Patriots Super Bowl wins. Here’s my list, and my thoughts on the broadcasters and their calls. Apologies in advance for having to watch some of the clips on YouTube, but at least all the links are in one place now.

5. Super Bowl 38 – CBS – Greg Gumbel

Back in 2003, Jim Nantz was still on studio duty hosting The NFL Today and Greg Gumbel was the lead play-by-play announcer for CBS. Gumbel is a sold broadcaster, but there’s not much here. Neither the call after the field goal nor the call after the kickoff add much. There’s something to be said about letting the moment “breathe” and letting the pictures tell the story, but some narration here would have been great.

4. Super Bowl 39 – FOX – Joe Buck

Joe Buck’s first Super Bowl broadcast. I think Buck takes far more criticism than he deserves, but he falls into the same trap here that Gumbel did at the end of Super Bowl 38. It’s nice to let the moment breathe, but some excitement or commentary would have helped distinguish this interception with nine seconds remaining in the Super Bowl from an interception in Week 9.

3. Super Bowl 36 – FOX – Pat Summerall

This call gets a lot of flack. I remember not liking it much at the time, either, but it has grown on me. Sure, a little more excitement or commentary would have been nice. But this moment benefits the most from the broadcasters letting it breathe and letting the pictures tell the story of complete bedlam after time expired. This was also Pat Summerall’s last game as FOX’s lead football broadcaster. Watching game replays today I half expect him to start talking about the leather helmet days and about when men were men.

2. Super Bowl 51 – FOX – Joe Buck

The easiest call in sports might be the walk-off home run, and this is the closest equivalent in football. Buck does a good job to call the play, shows some excitement, and sums things up pretty well at the end. “Brady has his fifth! What a comeback!”

1. Super Bowl 49 – NBC – Al Michaels

Not the first time Al Michaels has taken the top spot on a “best sports calls” list and hopefully not the last. I love the excitement in his voice, and am very impressed that he was able to spit out the name Malcolm Butler so easily. Butler wasn’t exactly a household name at that point.

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Not sure what the NFL television contract situation looks like right now, but I’d love to see ESPN/ABC get another Super Bowl soon. No one beats Sean McDonough in moments like these.

B’s Look Good Heading Into Bye Week

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ESPN – The NHL will work in a five-day “bye week” next season as part of the negotiation with the NHL Players’ Association to sign off on the All-Star format changes announced this week, according to sources…

[T]he league will build in a five-day bye week for each team into their schedule between Jan. 1 and Feb. 28 next season, sources told ESPN.com.

Players will be completely off with no practice during this break. There will be practice permitted after 4 p.m. local time on the fifth day if there is a game on the sixth day; otherwise no practice will be allowed on the fifth day.

I won’t lie, I had no idea NHL teams had bye weeks until I heard it mentioned on the pre-game show last night. A quick Google search revealed that the NHL bye week is, in fact, new for the 2016-2017 season. A complete list of NHL bye weeks can be found on reddit.

With their 4-0 win over the Canadiens last night, the Bruins head into their inaugural bye week winners of three in a row, 3-0-0 in the Bruce Cassidy era. The Canadiens also have their bye this week after back-to-back losses over the weekend.

The Bruins got skewered for firing Claude the day of the Patriots parade and rightfully so. But maybe the timing of Claude’s firing wasn’t so bad after all. The Bruins have strung together three straight wins, and now have six full days off before opening a west coast road trip in San Jose Sunday night. They will play four games in California and Texas in eight days before returning to the Garden on February 28.

In the past, I always expected the Bruins to fire a coach after a disastrous west coast road trip when it was probably too late anyways. At least this year the Bruins made the move before it was too late. We’ll have a better idea in two weeks if it really made a difference, and if the Bruce Cassidy era will extend into May, June or beyond.

Friday Morning Randomness

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In case you missed it during the lead up to the Super Bowl, ESPN aired a terrific 30 for 30 on February 2, “This Was the XFL.” If you haven’t seen it yet, it’s a great watch.

This opening scramble definitely took me back to early 2001. It’s a shame no one has figured out yet how to keep a spring football league going. There are dozens of independent baseball leagues and teams, why can’t someone do the same with football?

Anyway, enjoy the nostalgia rush that is the XFL. Too bad I can’t go down to Building 19 to look for a Memphis Maniax jersey today.

MLB to Get Serious about Speeding up Games

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ESPN – Is this the year baseball raises the strike zone? Is it the year the sport does away with the practice of lobbing four balls toward home plate to issue an intentional walk? Major League Baseball has made formal proposals to the players’ union to usher in both of those changes.

ESPN – MLB will test a rule change in the rookie-level Gulf Coast League and the Arizona League this summer that will automatically place a runner on second base at the start of extra innings.

The days between the Super Bowl and MLB Opening Day are the dreariest days of the year for sports talk. Even for the diehards, breaking down regular season hockey and basketball games every day can get tedious. Topics like MLB’s pace of play can get a lot of attention in February.

You gotta admire MLB’s attempt to steer the conversation on the pace of play discussion. “Games lasting longer three hours have nothing to do with endless Southwest Airlines commercials. Nothing at all. It’s all those intentional walks and extra inning games slowing us down! Yeah, that’s it!”

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Actually, only 7.6% of MLB games last year went to extra innings. Of those extra inning games, 40% ended after just 10 innings. Only 32 games went past 12 innings last year.

There were 932 intentional walks last season. That may seem like a lot, but that’s out of 2430 games played across the league last year. That works out to one intentional walk every two and half games or so. On a night when all 30 teams are playing, you might see about 6 intentional walks.

Speeding up extra innings and/or intentional walks does not seem like the best way to regularly speed up the pace of play or cut down game times significantly. I think if MLB wants to get serious, they’ll have to consider George Carlin’s rule proposals from 1986.

If that doesn’t work, maybe we can cut a few Southwest ads after all. I don’t know that many people need to fly from Manchester to Albany for 49 bucks any time soon anyways.

Mariners Top Spring Training Cap Power Rankings

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A+ tweet, Mariners. The 300s can confirm that this hat is, in fact, 🔥.

I’m semiretired from the hat game. Bought a ton in high school, college and right after college. Sadly, real world expenses have put a real dent in my sports apparel budget. A few times a year, though, something new catches my eye. This Mariners spring training cap definitely passes the eye test for me.

MLB unveiled their 2017 spring training collection earlier today, and the new Mariners cap is definitely the big winner. The Mariners already had a solid “fauxback” cap in their rotation, which features their current logo in their old color scheme. This new spring training cap seems like the next logical step – their old logo with their current color scheme.

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Some other big winners today are the Cubs, who brought back their “angry cub” sleeve patch from the 80’s for their new spring training cap. The Mets continue to push Mr. Met back into the witness protection program and the Rays continue to push the limits of powder blue. The new Yankees cap might be the only swing and miss for me. Their pinstripes are iconic but seem out of place on the brim of a cap.

The whole 2017 Spring Training cap lineup can be seen on Chris Creamer’s SportsLogos.Net.

 

No Experience Required?

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super-bowl-li-patriots-patch-590x590On The 300s Podcast this week, we discussed whether or not previous Super Bowl experience would be a benefit for the Patriots heading into their Super Bowl LI matchup with the Atlanta Falcons. At first thought, I assumed previous Super Bowl experience would be a huge advantage for the Patriots.

The week leading up the Super Bowl is a gongshow. Media Day Opening Night is a just the beginning of a week full of distractions, and who blocks out distractions better than the Patriots? But Michael Salfino had an interesting piece in the Wall Street Journal on Friday, basically picking my assumption apart, piece by piece.

New England has 17 more players with Super Bowl experience (21) than the Falcons. In the last 40 Super Bowls, a team has held this advantage over its opponent 38 times. These teams are 16-22 in those games…

An edge at the game’s most important position didn’t matter either. Teams have had a QB with prior Super Bowl experience 19 times versus a team like the Falcons and Matt Ryan with none and are 9-10.

I stand corrected. Upon further reflection, this holds up pretty well over the last 15 years. Just off the top of my head, experience didn’t help the 2001 Rams, the 2007 Patriots, the 2009 Colts, the 2010 Steelers or the 2013 Broncos in the big game. It seems like Super Bowl veterans are just as liable to put up clunkers (Peyton Manning 2013) as Super Bowl first-timers (Cam Newton 2015).

The Super Bowl is such a colossal event that maybe no matter how many times you’ve been, each trip is its own adventure. We’ll see what events unfold this week, but I’m no longer under the impression that Brady’s six previous Super Bowl appearances give him the edge over Matt Ryan. I’d still take Brady over Ryan if I had my pick at QB but maybe Ryan and Atlanta’s blissful Super Bowl ignorance isn’t a shortcoming after all. Looking at the history of this game, maybe having no baggage is an advantage.

Liquid Gold in a Bottle

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I take the fast food beat at The 300s seriously. Very Seriously. I was planning on heading over to my local Taco Bell yesterday to get my hands on the new Naked Chicken Chalupa that I wrote about earlier this month. That plan was placed on hold, though, when I heard McDonald’s was planning to give away 10,000 bottles of Big Mac Sauce.

[Nice job stealing the spotlight away from Taco Bell yesterday, McDonald’s! I didn’t see Taco Bell on the NBC Nightly News!]

Unfortunately for my Boston colleagues, Boston was not selected as one of the locations for this giveaway. Thankfully, a McDonald’s not too far from my undisclosed location was selected.

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Here’s the part where I’d love to tell you about what a zoo it was. But it wasn’t. I got there 20 minutes early,  was 21st in line, and they gave out approximately 100 bottles. The line was cordial, respectful and honestly painless. The line got going at 1 pm, and I walked out with my bottle at 1:02. Good work McDonald’s!

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When I got home, I fought the urge to put this puppy on eBay. Curiosity got the best of me, though, and all of the hassle to mail a bottle of salad dressing didn’t seem worth the fifty-odd bucks I’d probably pocket after fees and shipping.

The verdict? Pretty good. It’s impossible to recreate the Big Mac in your kitchen, but this sauce makes a homemade version a little more believable than Thousand Island dressing does. You won’t make many, though. At 11.4 ounces, I feel like my bottle is almost half gone after one night.

Of course this giveaway is also meant to highlight the new Grand Mac and Mac Jr. that McDonald’s recently introduced.

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The Grand Mac (aka McKinley Mac) has been a secret menu item for years, but now I won’t need to speak in code to order one. Seems like a no brainer; it’s basically a Double Quarter Pounder with Big Mac Sauce swapped in for ketchup. The original Big Mac is a bit skimpy, to be honest. I probably won’t be trying the Mac Jr. any time soon for that reason, but the Mac Jr. could be a solid late-night menu option for some.

Like any new fast food menu offering, it’s for a limited time only. We’ll see how long that is, but it’s a moot point. McDonald’s won the day, again. Sorry, Taco Bell. You gotta beat the champ to be the champ. But you’re a competitor, and I look forward to your next crazy concoction. It’s a great time to be in the fast food game.

 

Dino Radja from Downtown!

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I know NBA Jam 2K17 was discussed here last week, but some new information has come into The 300s headquarters. The original Sega Genesis version of NBA Jam Tournament Edition can be played online, WITHOUT DOWNLOAD, at:

http://www.letsplaysega.com/play-nba-jam-tournament-edition-online/

Welp, there goes my productivity this afternoon. You can also find the original NBA Jam on that site, but you can’t beat the 9-pointers only available in Tournament Edition. And don’t get me started on the garbage SNES version. No in-game music, just squeaky shoes. Brings me back to silent suicides my high school basketball team did after losing games. [I doubt those are even allowed any more. Probably aren’t allowed to call them suicides either. But I digress.]

Only real downside is not being able to play your buddies. NBA Jam against the computer is like playing Monopoly against the computer. It’s just not the same when you can’t taunt your pal for hitting Boardwalk two turns in a row and sniff the play money until he flips the board.

If anyone out there has a working Sega and a tube TV, we might need to set up the inaugural 300s NBA Jam Tournament Edition Tournament this spring. I’ll get working on the logo.