Overlap, Not Overtime, Is A Killer

The Schloss-Blog, like Mad Dog Russo, is mad about ...

...games on TV that start on time but you can't see 'em.

Don't you hate it when you tune in to ESPN to watch a certain basketball game or to CBS to watch a big golf tournament, and the message scrolling across the bottom of the screen, while you're looking at a basketball game in which you have no interest, says, "the game you tuned in to watch is airing on ESPN News, the ESPN App or ESPN.com."

WTF is ESPN News on my cable or satellile or streaming service directory?

Why don't these networks and leagues appropriate the proper amount of time for these games so they don't overlap? The Schloss-Blog is not happy that by the time the game I want to watch comes on the score is already 21-18 and the first half is half over.

And I could care less about the game they forced me to watch before they switched over.

By the way - you ever see this happen to an NFL game? If a college basketball game overlaps into an NFL game, you know it's the college basketball game that will be switched to ESPN News while the NFL game gets underway on the principle network.

The NFL wouldn't tolerate such treatment from any network and would be on the phone to network management, probably to the president, if that happened. These NFL guys are bastards to work with; trust me, I've had to work with them on a book project on which they gave me a hard time about permission to use a photo of theirs.

I said "F_ck you," literally, to the obnoxious NFL rep I was talking to and used it anyway and now, more than 30 years later, they never did come back at me, but they were effing nasty.

Thank goodness I didn't overlap a telecast of theirs. Or maybe I would've liked to. So the score though, after all these years, is still Schloss-Blog 1, NFL 0.

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Can't wait to go on vacation at "The Riviera of the Middle East." I hear the tunnel transportation is top notch, aside from the dead bodies on the tracks.

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After today's Super Bowl, it still persists and you saw some of it today as well - defensive players miss tackles, or they just can't tackle.

Know why?

They try to tackle with their heads down and y'know what happens when you try to tackle with your head down?

If you can't see it, you can't hit it.

I will always - ALWAYS - remember the late, great Buffalo Grove High Football Coach, Grant Blaney, telling me after a big state playoff game that I covered, that he reminded his defensive coaches to remind their defensive players to tackle with their heads up in a game against a school with a stud running back.

And it worked. BG shut him down after he burned them on an opening drive and Blaney's team moved on to the next round of the playoffs.

Can't see it? Can't hit it. NFL players have to learn that. 

Quickly. Can't believe defensive coaches still tolerate it.

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Good luck, Ohio State football.

We'll see if your team is as good next year without masterminds Chip Kelly and Jim Knowles.

The latter defensive coordinator moved on to rival Penn State and the former offensive coordinator has move on to the NFL's Las Vegas Raiders.

As Tony Kornheiser would say on ESPN's Pardon the Interruption, "Happy Trails."

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Jimmy Butler, by all accounts, wanted to end up in Phoenix.

He didn't.

Kevin Durant didn't want to go to Golden State.

He didn't.

Bottom line: Butler got the two-year extension he wanted at Golden State, which was the one he wanted to get in Phoenix.

Kevin Durant, meanwhile, is on a team with two other superstars but the team - the Suns - sucks. They're a team with a dynamic trio as good as anybody else's "BigThree." even the Lakers.

What's wrong with the Suns? All that talent. Why aren't they winning? Maybe it's the third coach in three years.

No, definitely, it is.

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If you think Chicago sports is hurting (Cubs, Sox, Blackhawks, Bulls, Bears), you should move to Phoenix (Cardinals, Diamondbacks, Suns, Coyotes ... no, wait, they moved to Salt Lake without a whisper and no one cared enough to build them a new stadium; nobody wanted to keep them around). 

If you split your time betwen Chicago and Phoenix, like so many snowbirds (like me) do, it's difficult to find a winner to get behind (OK, Arizona State football, for now, that is).

Yet, hope springs eternal. "Pitchers and catchers report."

Oh boy.

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Put Eli Manning in the Hall of Fame, please. He deserved first-ballot approval. He'll get in eventually. Just not this time.

Just ask Tom Brady about him.

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Good night, Mrs. Calabash. Here's to you, Grinnellville 11.

More Sunday night on my Radio Free Phoenix rock 'n' roll show.