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By Mike Rose
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Monday, August 15, 2005
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Rose’s Rant - August 15th, 2005
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As we hit the halfway point in the month of August, it’s
getting a bit cooler outside. A bitter reminder that summer
is almost over. With the changing of the seasons comes football,
and a little later comes the wars of October. Many across the
country have already forgotten about baseball with every NFL
team already playing at least one pre-season game. How much
fun did you have watching the scrubs battle it out for the
remaining open spots on their respective teams rosters? I had
none, and I’ll get back to pigskin a little later on.
How insane has this MLB season been? Only the Central Division
in both leagues have been wrapped up with both the St. Louis
Cardinals and Chicago White Sox holding double-digit leads
over the second place teams. The AL Wild Card race looks to
be a two team race in my opinion with Oakland and Los Angeles
alternating first place leads in the West, while the Houston
Astros rose from the dead once again and now hold the lead in
the NL Wild Card race. I personally don’t think Houston has
enough to pull off miracles in back-to-back seasons, but all
the teams chasing them have enough holes that might not allow
them to be overtaken.
That being said, keep a close eye on the Chicago Cubs. They
recently fell out of the running for a Wild Card birth with
their 8-game losing streak last week, but they just took 3
of 4 from the division leading Cardinals and stroll into
Houston for a 3-game set starting tonight. Nine of their next
15 games are at home after playing six games on the road this
week, and there’s no denying that this squad has the talent
on hand to make a run much like Houston did a year ago to
lock up the Wild Card birth.
The second week of NFL pre-season play wraps up tonight as the
Eagles invade Pittsburgh in the second Monday Night game of
the season. I for one had a dose of terrible luck in Week 2
as I went a whopping 3-7 ATS and lost my Best bet terribly.
As pretty much all my NFLX tickets went up in flames, I still
watched the games and noticed a few things that hadn’t been
present over the last few years. The one major thing that
caught my eye was the amount of blitzing the teams did. For
those that really did their homework for NFLX games, backing
a team that had a coach who loved to blitz in the pre-season
was surely money in the bank. That angle just might have to
be scrapped, as it seemed every squad was blitzing in every
quarter this past weekend literally neutralizing the value
of backing a tenacious squad.
Finally, is it safe to say the Chicago bears 2005 season is
over with 4 more weeks till opening day? For the second
consecutive season, the Bears will be without QB Rex Grossman
who fractured his left ankle Friday night after rehabbing
his right knee the last nine months. The Bears did some fine
work in shoring up their offensive woes from a year ago, but
the franchises fortunes will now be handed over to Chad
Hutchinson. He has the moxie to be a QB in the NFL, but I’m
not sold that he’s got the tools to lead this squad to the
post-season; at least from what I saw only a short year ago.
This is now the third devastating player loss in a row for a
Chicago sports based team. Eddie Curry went down with a heart
ailment to close out the 2005 regular season, and his absence
on the blocks in the post-season was ultimately the reason
they lost in the first round to the Wizards. SS Nomar
Garciaparra ripped his groin right off his bone in only the
third week of the season this year, but surprisingly recovered
enough in time to get back into the starting line-up last week.
Now add Rex Grossman to the list once again. Woe is me for being a Chicago fan...
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