Another weekend has passed,

and, yet again, another news story has appeared about a serious problem

involving the officiating in major sports events. 

On Saturday afternoon in Baton Rouge, there was a thrilling battle for first place in the Southeastern Conference pitting the upstart #13 LSU Tigers against the #5 Tennessee Volunteers.  The Tigers ultimately won the game in overtime, 82-80, and are now tied for first place with Kentucky.

Coming down the final minutes,

the three game officials curiously and maddeningly stopped play on four

different occasions and went to the video replay to review certain plays or to

verify the time remaining in the contest. 

The four stoppages of play

broke the game’s momentum and forced both teams and the frenzied Tiger fans in

the Pete Maravich Assembly Center to wait for ten minutes while the head

referee asked for video replays.    

The head referee spent 3:55

reviewing a possible change of possession (call upheld), 2:45 reviewing a restricted

area issue (call upheld), and two time clock reviews (2:10 and 0:55) which

added a miniscule total of .8 seconds back to the game clock. 

None of the plays were

reversed or significantly altered by these s-l-o-w video reviews.  Neither of the coaches seemed to be demanding

that the plays be reviewed.

This is simply another case

of a creepy new disease which has now become epidemic in officials of all major

sports.

Video replay addiction.

It has become quite obvious that game officials in major sports (basketball, football, and baseball) are becoming increasingly paranoid of making their own calls and then dealing with the pressure of having a video replay show a possible error. 

On the other hand, referees

can swallow their whistle and make no call at all, too.  The NFC Championship game in New Orleans

against the L.A. Rams comes to mind.  Right,

Saints fans?

One way or another, it’s time to do away with on-court referees and sports officials stopping game play by going to video replays as a “crutch” to avoid being blamed for possible errors.

ESPN’s two announcers at the game (including the legendary Dick Vitale) called-out the three referees for their unnecessary game stoppages as ruining the game for the players and fans alike.

Referees and game officials

are paid to make judgment calls to keep the game played fairly.  Just like in any other profession, their work

will rarely approach perfection, but that is the goal.

In my opinion, many referees and game officials have become less and less confident in their own abilities and are acceding making key decisions by looking at a television replay.  In doing so, they are becoming less reliant on their own personal judgment and becoming less effective on the field of play. 

There is no way that

officials of any sport will get everything right. 

If perfection is your true goal,

then it’s time for one or more sports to dismiss the on-court or on-field

officials and give all officiating responsibility to the electronic reviews

from the booth. 

That seems very unlikely, but

the recent dependence on game officials on a video “crutch” has made them less

effective and too paranoid of making a mistake, too.

To help, here are a few ideas

which I would like to see implemented IMMEDIATELY:

It’s time for ol’ SwampSwami to bring you a few additional stories via our weekly “Sweep-the-SwampCast” audio podcast.

Today’s podcast features an update on a Saints’ fan lawsuit filed in Louisiana, thoughts about issues surrounding the “shoe kablooey” of Duke hoops star Zion Williamson, more details on the NBA’s Anthony Davis/New Orleans Pelicans trade saga, the man who just provided a $250 million cash infusion into the fledgling AAF professional football league and became its new Chairman, and a tribute to former Dodgers’ pitcher, Don Newcombe, who passed away this week at age 92.

Click on the box above to listen or subscribe (FREE!) on Apple Podcasts! Enjoy the really big shoe (oops – I mean “show“)!

I don’t know whether to feel sorry for Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver, Antonio Brown, or join the legion of Steeler Nation cheering for his exit from Pittsburgh after Brown’s selfish heel turn. 

A former sixth round draft pick coming out of Central Michigan University, Antonio Brown started his rookie season with the Steelers in 2010 and worked hard to quickly establish himself as the most talented receiver for the Black and Gold.  In his rookie season, Antonio Brown helped the Steelers to their most recent Super Bowl appearance (February, 2011). 

Brown has achieved All-Pro

status seven times in the past eight seasons. 

He was rewarded by the Steelers with a new four-year contract worth $17

million per season (worth $68 million overall and included $19 million as a signing

bonus).   At the time of his contract, he was the

highest paid wide receiver in the NFL.

On the field in 2018, Antonio

Brown finished this year with more than 1,000 yards in pass receiving for the

sixth straight year.   Despite missing the final game of the year, he

led the entire NFL with 15 touchdown receptions. 

Antonio Brown will be 31

years old before the next NFL season and remains under contract to Pittsburgh

for another three seasons.

Yet, Antonio Brown is loudly and frequently telling everyone who will listen or decipher his frequent Twitter posts that he wants out of Pittsburgh right now, and the Steelers are (apparently) planning to entertain trade offers to ship their best wide receiver out of town.

How did this happen?

When you take a look at the

long journey of Antonio Brown’s life, his ascendency to becoming one of the NFL’s

premier receivers has been riddled with a litany of self-inflicted miscues,

too.

Coming out of a Miami (FL)

high school as a talented quarterback and track star, Brown’s poor academic

performance cost him a chance to play for Florida State.  He then went to tiny North Carolina Tech Prep

for a season. 

After one season in Carolina,

Antonio Brown was offered a scholarship to come back to Florida and play for

Florida International University. 

Unfortunately, he was expelled from school prior to the start of the

semester due to an altercation with campus security. 

Brown found a new opportunity

with Central Michigan University where he found success as a punt and kickoff

return specialist as well as a budding wide receiver.  His natural speed and his willingness to work

made him a sixth round pick by the Pittsburgh Steelers after his junior collegiate

season.

With Pittsburgh, Antonio Brown learned his new professional craft beside all-star talents like fellow wide receiver Hines Ward and quarterback Ben Roethlisberger.  With Brown’s talent and work ethic, he quickly became a star in Pittsburgh and throughout the NFL.

By 2016, though, things

started to unravel with Brown’s increasing self-inflicted errors.  He was fined by the NFL for wearing baby blue

cleats (uniform violation).  He was fined

twice for two separate “suggestive” post-touchdown celebrations.

After a tight playoff win

against Kansas City, Brown posted the Steelers’ locker room celebration live on

Facebook.   It was later learned that Brown had been paid

nearly $250,

If you’re a golfer, you know

that nearly every golf course has a sign posted near the first tee which suggests

that a round of golf should be played in no more than four hours.

At many public and private

golf courses, a marshal rides a cart around the layout to make sure that one or

more groups don’t hold up the rest of the golfers.

If the average golfer struggles to break 100 shots per round is asked to finish a round in four hours, please explain to me why the best golfers in the world cannot complete a round of golf in less than 5 hours anymore?

This weekend, the Genesis Los Angeles Open was won by J. B. Holmes.  Holmes has been one of the longest hitters on the PGA tour for several years.

He has also become one of the slowest players on the tour.

Holmes picked up his fifth career win and his first since 2015.  It took his group five hours and thirty minutes to play the final round on Sunday. 

That’s right.  The best golfers in the world played their final 18 holes in ninety minutes longer than you and I are expected to play a round of golf at our local public course! 

How can this be allowed?  Other than Phil Mickelson and Tiger Woods, pro golfers are rarely in the trees, traps, and water hazards as often as we do.

“Well, you play in

25-mile-an-hour gusty winds and see how fast you play when you’re playing for

the kind of money and the points and everything that we’re playing for,” Holmes

said. “You can’t just get up there and whack it when it’s blowing that hard.”

That’s baloney, J.B.

He played the round with another veteran PGA tour terrapin named Adam Scott and slothful young star, Justin Thomas. 

Adam Scott admits he recently told the PGA Tour’s chief of tournaments and competitions, Andy Pazder, that he would be willing to take a two-stroke penalty in order to get players to speed up.  Seriously?

 “Make me the

victim,” the 2013 Masters champion and 13-time PGA Tour winner said. “I’ll take

the penalty. The only way it’s going to work is if you enforce it.”

Another slow-playing PGA Tour-tle is Bryson DeChambeau.  DeChambeau was a physics major at SMU and appears to take all conditions (wind speed, relative humidity, time of day, ground elevation, phase of the moon and tides, etc.) under consideration prior to taking a shot from the tee, fairway, or on the green.

DeChambeau has been quite successful in his early PGA tour career with five wins as he begins his third full season on the big circuit.   As for his tendency to be overly meticulous (i.e. – S-L-O-W), he recently said:

“I think that anybody that has an issue with

it, I understand, but we’re playing for our livelihoods out here, and this is

what we want to do. If we want to provide the best entertainment for you, it’s

part of our process. It’s part of my process, at least”.

Though many PGA tour players seem to be just fine with the snail-like pace of play, others aren’t.  Two-time US Open champion, Brooks Koepka, doesn’t understand what is taking the other players so lo...

Listen to SwampSwami’s weekly “Sweep-the-SwampCast” for the latest on the New Orleans Pelicans and Anthony Davis; an update on another Saints’ fan lawsuit against the NFL; the AAF and Colin Kaepernick; where will The “Ray-Duhs” of the Lost Ark play this season; PGA golfer Matt Kuchar’s “CaddieGate” issue; and stories about the NBA’s Kayfabe Refs and “Suitcase Stauskas”!

Check it out above! It’s also available (FREE, of course!) via Apple Podcasts. Subscribe today!

It’s nearly time for the NBA

All-Star weekend in Charlotte, North Carolina! 

In days gone by, the NBA

All-Star weekend was a special annual event for professional basketball fans.

In days gone by, the All-Star

weekend allowed fans to see their favorite players gathered together in one

arena with the East All-Stars squaring off against the West All-Stars.

In days gone by, the NBA All-Star game featured at least one player from every team in the league on the roster.

Times have changed, and,

sadly, those days are gone!

This weekend, you’ll see “Team LeBron James” against “Team Giannis Antetokounmpo”.  LeBron James was the leader in fan voting from the NBA’s Western Conference and Giannis A. received the most votes for players in the Eastern Conference.

Logically, many fans would

assume that Team LeBron would be comprised of the top five Western All-Stars voted

by the fans, and Team Giannis would be leading his other four Eastern

conference fan choices in the respective starting line-ups.

Nope. 

The NBA All-Star game actually had a televised “draft” last week where LeBron James and Giannis A. made alternating picks from the fans’ top choices (five from each conference)  and those “reserves” chosen by the NBA head coaches (seven from each conference). 

If your favorite NBA team is Atlanta,

Chicago, Cleveland, or the New York Knicks in the East, you won’t be represented.  Western teams in Salt Lake City (Utah), Sacramento,

Memphis, Phoenix, and the Los Angeles Clippers will be on the outs, too.

Don’t gloat, Miami and Dallas!  The only reason you have a Dwyane Wade and Dirk Nowitski on the roster is because of a special “last chance” invite as these two players are retiring at the end of the season.

Team LeBron will be coached by Mike Malone of the Western Conference leading Denver Nuggets while Team Giannis will be coached by his own coach, Mike Budenholzer, of the Eastern leaders in Milwaukee. 

Is it just me or don’t you

expect that LeBron will fire his coach by halftime and name himself as coach

for the second half?   

In addition to the All-Star game on Sunday night, there will be other events designed to take money away from the paying customers this weekend in Charlotte. 

On Friday night, some fans

will pay money to watch an “All-Star Celebrity Challenge” game featuring a few

retired stars, some WNBA players, at least one rapper, some comedians, and

more! 

If that wasn’t enough, the NBA’s “Rising Stars” will play an exhibition game featuring Team US vs. Team World (players with oversees roots).    Sadly, Lonzo Ball will not play due to injury, but I would really consider watching this game if his Dad, LaVar Ball, took his place in the line-up!

On Saturday, it’s the recently added “Skills” (yawn) challenge plus the annual 3-point shooting contest followed by the (bigger yawn) slam dunk challenge.

Ironically, there are ten contestants for the 3-point contest, eight players in the skills challenge, and just four this season competing in the slam dunk contest.  

Though I doubt the NBA pays attention to my ideas, I hereby propose the following changes for the weekend to make the NBA All-Star weekend more fan friendly:

Phil Mickelson won the extended Monday morning finish of the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am with a three shot victory.   The tournament was suspended Sunday night due to darkness after a rare hail storm littered the scenic Pacific seaside golf course for about two hours during the final round.

With the victory, Mickelson claimed his 44th professional career title which ranks Lefty in ninth place on the PGA all-time victory list. 

The leader in career PGA wins is Sam Snead with 82.  Tiger Woods is two behind with 80.  Jack Nicklaus is third with 73, then Ben Hogan (64), Arnold Palmer (62), Byron Nelson (52), Billy Casper (51), and Walter Hagen (45).   

I was surprised to learn that Phil has been on tour for 29 years.  For PGA players with at least one professional win, only Sam Snead and Raymond Floyd (30 seasons) have played longer on the big tour. 

One way or another, Sunday, June

16, 2019 will be a huge day for Phil Mickelson. 

In addition to turning 49

years old on that Sunday, it is also Father’s Day and the final round of the US

Open golf championship.  

With three Masters’ green

jackets and one win each at the British Open and PGA Championship, the US Open

is the only professional golf major championship which has evaded Phil

Mickelson’s trophy case.  He has finished

second in this event a record six times during his golfing career.

With a “Happy Birthday/Father’s Day” win this June at the US Open, Mick would become the sixth professional golfer to win the career “Grand Slam”.  He would join Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods, Gary Player, Ben Hogan, and Gene Sarazen in this elite golf club.

Now, let’s add a little more

pressure.

With Phil Mickelson’s win on

Monday at Pebble Beach Golf Links, it marked his fifth career win at one of the

most beloved golf layouts in the world.

In June, the US Open will be played at…drum roll…the very same Pebble Beach. 

Phil Mickelson was born in southern

California and still resides in the San Diego area.  Even if Tiger Woods is in the mix this June

at the US Open, Phil’s boisterous fans should dominate the grounds of Pebble

Beach that weekend. 

While it is great to have the

majority of the crowd in your corner, it can put additional pressure on a

golfer, too. 

I am reading Arnold Palmer’s book “A Golfer’s Life”.  Palmer was at the top of his professional popularity when the 1962 US Open was contested at Oakmont Country Club near his western Pennsylvania hometown of Latrobe. 

Palmer, like Phil Mickelson,

was a huge crowd favorite, and “Arnie’s Army” really wanted their favorite

golfer to take down a young upstart named Jack Nicklaus that week.

Arnie said that Nicklaus’

concentration (especially while the pro-Palmer western Pennsylvania golf fans were

quite rude to Jack) was the best he had ever seen on a golf course.  The final round ended in a tie, and Arnold

When I read that the new Alliance of American Football (AAF) would attempt to complete their football games in no longer than 2 hours and 30 minutes (including overtime), I became quite interested.

In the weekend’s first set of games just one week after the NFL’s “Big Game”, my expectations were low for this latest attempt to provide fans with a professional alternative to the NFL.  Most other attempts have failed, but this league has some potential and, more importantly, terrific timing.      

With only eight teams in the

new football league (Arizona Hotshots, Atlanta Legends, Birmingham Iron,

Memphis Express, Orlando Apollos, Salt Lake Stallions, San Antonio Commanders,

and San Diego Fleet), the league will play a ten game regular season schedule

which ends with a championship game in Las Vegas on April 27.

There are several differences

between the new AAF and many other failed professional football ventures

attempted over the past 45 years.  The

deceased leagues included:

XFL – 2001

World League of American Football/NFL Europe – 1991 – 2007

USFL – 1983-1985

American Football Association – 1978-1983

World Football League – 1974-1975

First, the new AAF has the distinct advantage of great timing.  In 2019, there are now several hungry cable sports television providers not named ESPN who are quite willing telecast the AAF’s initial season.  The CBS Sports Network, NFL Network, and TNT will all telecast some of the games. 

These cable competitors are quite aware that King Football’s viewership eclipses any other type of sports programming that they could provide viewers during the late winter/early spring period.

Next, the AAF seems to be quite content to be the “first or second chance into the NFL” league.  More than 70% of the AAF rosters are filled with players who, at one point or another, have made an NFL team.  There are a few familiar football players on nearly every AAF team.

Every player – from quarterback

to kicker – in the AAF receives the same base salary and contract.  Currently, it pays $250,000 for three

seasons.   

For some players, they may

get their next NFL “chance” this summer, and, with it, a higher pay.   For

others, receiving $83,000 per year to play a ten-game season on national

television isn’t the worst thing, either.

For the AAF, the pay scale makes player salaries a controllable cost of doing business.   With a 52-man roster, that would equate to an annual player payroll of $4.33 million. 

For a point of reference, that also means that it would take nearly six complete AAF teams to match the pay for the New Orleans Saints’ quarterback Drew Brees’ ($25 million) during the 2018 NFL season.

Isn’t capitalism great? 

The AAF features a few nifty fan-friendly

rule changes, too. 

There are no kickoffs (the ball is placed at the 25 yard line), no kicked extra points (two-point conversions only), no television time-outs (YES!), and, in the event of overtime, each team will get the ball on the opponent’s ten yard line one time (with a two-point conversion).  If the game remains tied after each team’s possession, the game ends in a tie as the league remains mindful of keeping playing time to no more than two hours and thirty minutes. 

In week one, the attendance

Your SwampSwami had more to say this week about the NBA’s trade deadline on Thursday, the NFL’s finale last weekend, a surprising golf story and problems with recent rule changes, and how one NBA player swatted down questions from someone in the sports media earlier this week.

This show is audio only! Check out the audio above or subscribe via iTunes (it’s FREE!).

After bringing home his sixth National Football League championship trophy to the New England Patriots, head coach Bill Belichick further cemented his lock as professional football’s #1 “Evil Genius” of his profession. 

The 66-year old football coach

has been running the show in New England for 18 seasons and has only missed the

playoffs three times (the last time was ten years ago in 2008).

Though I didn’t watch last

weekend’s Super Bowl game due to my commitment to participating in the Saints’

Boycott Bowl, the Patriots defense forced that other team (who shall remain

nameless) to punt the ball eight consecutive times to begin Sunday’s game.

The Patriots’ long-time

defensive coordinator, Matt Patricia, left the team after the 2017 season to

take the reins in Detroit.  The 2018 New

England team defense ranked a pitiful 24th place out of the NFL’s 32

teams.

How did they shut down the

NFC’s (fake) Champs on a fast track dome stadium on Sunday?

Simple!  The Patriots trotted out a completely new

defense which they had not used all year!   The team from the NFC simply never adjusted

well enough to recover in the Patriots’ boring 13-3 win.

Leave it to the “Darth Vader” of NFL head coaches to roll-out a brand new scheme in just two weeks, right?

What makes Bill Belichick

such a special head coach?

His undergraduate degree is

in Economics from tiny Wesleyan University in Connecticut. 

Maybe Coach Belichick is able

to harness the secret powers of supply and demand and graph the other team into

football submission! 

Just for fun, I checked the

pedigrees some of the most successful NFL coaches (excluding the coach of that

certain team on the West Coast representing the NFC last weekend). 

* Bill Belichick –

New England – Bachelors in Economics from Wesleyan University (CT)* Sean Payton – New

Orleans – Degree in Communications from Eastern Illinois* Pete Carroll –

Seattle – Degree in Business Administration from the University of the Pacific* Andy Reid –

Kansas City – Bachelors in Health/PE plus Masters in Athletics Leadership at

Brigham Young.* John Harbaugh –

Baltimore – Bachelors in Political Science from Miami (Ohio) University

How about the college

coaches?

* Nick Saban –

Alabama – Bachelors-Business Admin. And Masters in Sports Admin. – Kent State* Dabo Swinney –

Clemson – Bachelors – Business Admin. And MBA – Univ. of Alabama* Brian Kelly –

Notre Dame  – Bachelors – Political

Science – Assumption College (MA)* Lincoln Riley –

Oklahoma Univ. – Bachelors – Exercise and Sports Sciences – Texas Tech

So, let’s take a quick tally:

Business majors comprise nearly half of these successful coaches’ academic pedigrees with Political Science and Health/PE majors scoring two each, along with one Communications major. 

Another interesting thing to

note is that about half of these coaches attended college at small or mid-sized

universities.   

There have been eight new

head coaches (25%) hired by NFL teams during the past month for the upcoming football

season.  Let’s take an academic check of

these new selections:

* Zac Taylor –

Cincinnati Bengals – Bachelors – Communications – Nebraska* Brian Flores –

Miami Dolphins – Bachelors (English) and Masters (Administrat...