The Lakers' Jeanie and JIm Buss. It's War

Jim and Jeanie Buss, who run the Los Angeles Lakers, are at war. They may try to appear cordial and pretend all is well,  but it's not. Jeanie, who heads the team's business operations, and Jim, who makes the basketball decisions, are waging a bitter conflict.

The center of that conflict? Jeanie's boyfriend, ex-Laker head coach Phil Jackson.

Jackson's proposed move to the New York Knicks, as head of  basketball operations, has made the bad relationship between the Buss siblings take a turn for the worse. Sources close to several people inside the Laker organization report that the siblings are really at each others throats now that Jackson is on the verge of signing with another NBA team.

The Busses barely talk, report the sources, and when they do there's nothing but venom and nastiness. Apparently Jeanie thinks her brother is a stubborn jerk who's running the team into the ground with one bad decision after another, beginning with the hire of head coach Mike D'Antoni, who's been a disaster.

Early last season, the Lakers figured in NBA championship discussions. Now they're prominent in lottery discussions. This is a bad team and Jim has had a hand in dragging it down.

Clearly the Lakers desperately need help. No question Jackson could be the answer. Jeanie has been pushing for him to be hired by the Lakers in some front-office capacity so that the team could take advantage of his considerable expertise. But Jim, who'd have to approve, opposes such a move. He claims it's a business decision but it's no secret that he doesn't like Jackson. In fact he never has. When Jackson, during two terms as Laker head coach, was piling up championships, Jim still didn't like him.

Jeanie is mad at her brother for keeping Jackson out of the Lakers' front office. She has never forgiven Jim for bypassing Jackson in November, 2012 in favor of D'Antoni for the head-coaching job. Legions of  Laker die-hards agree with her. They see Jackson, with more championship rings than fingers, as the savior who could lead the team out of this dark period. Some one has to make smart decisions in the next few years. The die-hards don't think Jim is capable. Apparently, neither does Jeanie.

The sources report that Jeanie isn't happy with Jackson's proposed move, which would create an incredibly awkward situation for her. Imagine, she's a Laker exec and her boyfriend runs another NBA team. Would she, a Laker, go to New York, sit among Knicks' fans and support that team? If Jackson does take that job, it's not clear how she's going to handle that situation.

Jeanie, though, doesn't blame Jackson. She knows he'd prefer working with her on the Lakers--but the team isn't offering him anything. With the Knicks, the team he once played for, offering him complete control, it may be an offer that he can't refuse.

Some observers think Jackson talking to the Knicks is just a ploy to push the Lakers into making him an offer. That, however, is doubtful. This Knicks' situation is for real.

Will Jackson take the Knick job sometime in the next few days? Probably. According to reports, he and the Knicks are putting the finishing touches on a deal.

If he takes that job, Jeanie's life suddenly becomes miserable. In that case, look for the war between the Busses to escalate.

The NFL's Nutty Proposed N-Word Penalty

Picture this during some NFL game next season

A defensive end is trash-talking to an enemy lineman after a play. "I took your Momma and your sister home last night and had a threesome with those crazy bitches." Or after being tackled by a corner back, a wide receiver chides him, "You hit like a faggot." Or one black player celebrates with a black colleague after making a critical sack just outside their own goal line. "Great work, nigger, great work!"

A ref hears all these dialogues. As nasty and vicious as they are, he's indifferent to the first two, but tosses a penalty flag at the black player for using the n-word during that friendly celebration, negating the sack and putting their team in a deeper hole.

What the hell!

Sounds insane but it could happen. The NFL competition committee, under pressure by a black organization, the Fritz Pollard Alliance, is considering a rule that will be presented for confirmation at the owners' meeting next month. There would be a fifteen-yard penalty against a player using the n-word on the field for the first time in a game. For the second offense, the player would be ejected. Apparently there's an excellent chance this rule will be adopted.

The league, which is extremely public-relations conscious, is reacting to a report investigating last season's Miami Dolphins' bullying scandal, which made the NFL look bad. What happened is that a white player. Richie Incognito, harassed a black player, Jonathan Martin--often using the n-word--to a point where Martin quit the team. In that report was a sense that the use of the n-word was out of control in the league and officials were doing nothing about it. This proposed rule is basically a PR move, with the NFL showing it can at least police one aspect of the bullying situation.

There's only one word to describe this proposed rule--idiotic.

The league is overstepping its bounds. On the one hand, the n-word is ugly, tied to centuries of abuse and degradation of black people. But, to some blacks and some black-friendly whites, it's a brotherhood greeting, meaning buddy or pal. To them, it's not ugly but instead, it's cool and cozy, a sign of camaraderie. There are two camps on the use of the n-word. The reaction is generational. To many young people, blacks in particular, it doesn't carry the negative clout it has for older people more in tune with the black revolution of the last century. The use of the n-word isn't just black and white. There are shades. The league's competition committee is ignoring that.

The NFL is ignoring something else--that, during a game, violence, ridiculously jacked-up emotions and obscene trash-talking reign. At that time, the players descend to a dark place, where the rules are different. The n-word is part of that dark place.When players are in there, you've got to cut them some slack. Penalties can change a game. Something you say during a game, when emotions are rocketed to abnormal levels, shouldn't carry that kind of weight.

Also, what about other slurs aimed at other groups, like Latins, Jews, Asians and gays? Why is the n-word on the verge of being banned during games and not kike or faggot or any other slurs? Isn't that, in itself, a form of bias, showing favoritism toward blacks and against other groups?

What about the flagrant hypocrisy of outlawing the n-word while the league allows one of its elite franchises, the Washington Redskins, to get away with having its name include a racial slur against Native Americans?. While Washington is allowed to use Redskins, the NFL should not be able to enact a rule banning another racial slur.

Bottom line. The n-word, to many, is vile, but you can't legislate away its use in this specialized arena. If the NFL is dumb enough to adopt this rule, it won't make a bit of difference. Players will ignore it. The n-word will continue to be popular among young players, who grew up using it positively, and bigots, who thrive on it..

Give the NFL credit, though. Its heart is in the right place. But its head, in this case, is firmly up its you-know-what.


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Why Openly Gay Michael Sam Will Go Undrafted

Michael Sam, the Missouri defensive end who recently came out of the closet, is projected to be pro football's first openly gay player. Supposedly he's going to be picked somewhere between the third and fifth rounds in the upcoming NFL draft.

It's politically correct to be supportive of gays and optimistic about this historic situation, but let's be real. Most likely Sam is not going to be drafted at all. The problem? He's just not good enough. He's simply not worth all the trouble he'll cause.

What's wrong is that he's not in a class with top ten picks like Jadeveon Clowney or Teddy Bridgewater or Johnny Manziel. If these guys suddenly came out of the closet, they are so talented that their draft status would be hurt very little--if at all.. The way South Carolina's Clowney rushes the passer, do you think some pro team would give a damn if he were gay? How about Texas A&M QB Manziel? He has the potential to turn a franchise around, to lead it to the promised land. Do you think teams would ignore him if he turned out to be gay?

Pro football is a business. Signing super-talented players, even if they come with baggage, is good business. But investing in modestly talented players loaded with back-breaking baggage is bad business. It simply makes no sense to sign Sam, who'll probably be just a backup player. However he has a huge downside--attracting distracting media hordes and creating locker room turmoil.

My sources checked Sam out closely, just like NFL teams will do, concluding he's far from a great talent. Two SEC position coaches, who had to prepare to play Missouri, offered valuable opinions but only talked to my sources off the record. Seems that nobody wants to be quoted talking negatively about Sam.

First of all, Sam's gaudy SEC co-Defensive Player of the Year title, based largely on his 11.5-sack total, is misleading. Look closely and you'll see he piled up sacks against bad teams, like Arkansas State and Florida, and didn't fare so well against good teams. He was strongest against the early, weaker part of the schedule and not so dominant against the tough conference teams later in the season. He doesn't have the dazzling speed (just a decent 4.7 forty) or the array of moves a premier pass-rusher needs. Nor, report the coaches, does he play the run particularly well. The consensus is that Sam, who's 6-1 1/2, 260 pounds, isn't quite skilled enough to play defensive end in the NFL or quick or savvy enough to be a dependable linebacker. Nor does he have the kind of athleticism coaches prefer in special teams players. Sam isn't even the best pro prospect on the Missouri defense. That honor belongs to the other starting end, Kony Ealy, who'll be picked early in the first round.

There's really no compelling reason to draft Sam. He lacks the speed and talent to become a great player. A hard worker, he might, with the right coaching, turn into an admirable second-stringer. According to the two SEC coaches, Sam isn't a potential NFL starter.
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The league is full of players on Sam's level. But they won't disrupt the locker room and the media doesn't care about them. Given a choice of signing one of these guys or Sam, with all his baggage, teams will take the easy way out.

You can't really blame them. It's just business.

Compare Michael Sam To Jackie Robinson? Rubbish!

When I read it or hear it, it makes my blood boil--and I've read and heard it at least a twenty times. I'm talking about media people comparing Jackie Robinson to Michael Sam, the Missouri defensive end who's about to become the first openly gay player in America's favorite sport, pro football.

It's an inane comparison.

What Robinson did was monumental. What Sam is about to do is admirable and courageous, but in comparison to what Robinson did, not in the same ballpark. Mentioning Sam and Robinson in the same breath belittles Robinson's accomplishment. It also means whoever is making the comparison doesn't grasp the scope of what Robinson did.

In 1947, Robinson became the first black player in major-league baseball.  But he didn't just desegregate baseball, then America's favorite sport and the bastion of white manhood. Robinson helped pave the way for America's black revolution of the 1950s and 1960s. What he did ranks with the greatest social achievements in America in the 20th century. Any one who compares Sam to Robinson needs to re-examine what Robinson did.

Look at America in 1947. When Dodger general manager Branch Rickey elevated Robinson from the minors to the major league Brooklyn Dodgers, there was, the most of the US, two countries--white America and black America. In much of the US, particularly in the South, blacks were treated like second-class citizens. Depending on the section of the country,  schools, hotels, restaurants, bathrooms, even drinking fountains were for whites only. Interracial marriage was outlawed in nearly every state. In parts of the South, whites could still get away with lynching a black man.

So what Robinson did, in 1947 America, was much more than desegregate major-league baseball. He symbolized blacks banging on the door of white America demanding their rights. The weight of black America was on his shoulders. If he failed, it wasn't just a personal setback. The black revolution would have also taken a step backward.

Many whites sided with Robinson but many, rightly realizing their way of life was under attack, hated him. He was cursed, spat upon and was the target of death threats and every imaginable manner of racial hatred. He put his life on the line. Lesser men would have quit, but he didn't. He had some good times, but he also went through hell his first few years in the National League.

This is not what Sam's life is going to be like when he's signed by some NFL team. Most fans and players will be in his corner. That's because much of the work, breaking down anti-gay barriers in this country, has already been done. In the last two decades much of America has become gay-friendly. However, homophobia and a juvenile frat-boy mentality still reign in the NFL world. Some players won't be comfortable around Sam in the locker room, in the shower and on the playing field. He'll be the target of slurs, venomous trash-talk and assorted negativity and unpleasantness.

But will Sam have to contend with the hatred and dangers that Robinson faced his first few years in the majors? No way. Is the weight of gay America on Sam's shoulders? Not really. Compared to what Robinson went through in the late 1940s, Sam's life in the NFL will be a stroll in the park.

So when you hear people compare Sam's journey to Robinson's--and you'll hear that a lot in the next few months--just chalk it up to ignorance.

Sadly, such a comparison does a disservice to Robinson's legacy and devalues his great achievement.

Cal Fans Sing "Signing Day Blues"

Man, are Cal football fans screwed.

We already knew it, but check out the crappy results of Wednesday's Signing Day, when high school players pick their college teams. That just rubs it in. The two websites that rate recruiting classes, Scout.com and Rivals.com, rank Cal in the mid 40s. For a team coming off an abysmal 1-11 season, that's not where you want to be.

There are no real jewels on Cal's list of 21 recruits. There's not likely another Aaron Rodgers or Brandon Mebane or DeSean Jackson. There may be some potential but don't expect it to be developed by this coaching staff.

The problem, of course, is the head coach, Sonny Dykes. The best recruits don't want to be anywhere near him or his staff. Dykes did replace two defensive position coaches and did demote defensive coordinator Andy Buh, who presided over the worst defense in school history, surrendering 45.9 points and 529 yards of total offense per game. Unfortunately, though, Buh is still on the staff, as a position coach. Why is he still a Cal coach? What other quality school would tolerate him?. Maybe he could find work at Southeast Dakota State Methodist Teacher's College. But he shouldn't be at Cal.

But then, neither should Dykes.

With him in charge, top players avoid Cal like the plague. Sources report that the word is out in recruiting circles--stay away from Dykes if you want an illustrious college career. So how does the team get better without attracting high-caliber players? With this recruiting class, Cal will stay in the lower depths of the Pac12, down there with Colorado, Utah and Washington State.

In the last decade, when former coach Jeff Tedford was at his peak, Signing Day used to be a glorious day for Cal. The Bears' class was always in the top 25, sometimes in or around the top 10. Cal was rarely in the running for the five-star studs, from high schools east of the west coast. Those guys were mostly gobbled up by the SEC. But the Bears at least had a chance at some of the west-coast gems. Not any more. If a high-school hot-shot has a chance to go to UCLA or USC or Oregon or Stanford, and Cal comes knocking at his door, what do you think he's going to do? Likely slam the door in the Cal recruiter's face.

So, these days, Cal fans are singing "Signing Day Blues," a sorrowful tune about a day that merely emphasizes what a mess the program has become. Defense is the real problem. Dykes clearly doesn't care about it. He says all the right things about the importance of defense in his system but that's pure bull. He's strictly an offense junkie who's captivated by that idiotic notion that you can win by outscoring your opponent in those messy 48-47 shootouts, where defense is non-existent.

So, for Cal fans, Signing Day just rubs our noses in the fact that we don't have the material to climb out of the hole we're in. The Bears may win a few games, but improving over a one-win season isn't that tough. It'll look like progress and that will keep Dykes around longer, for years of two or three or four-win seasons. Not much to look forward to.

The only hope, Cal fans, is that somehow school officials will get rid of the real culprit, AD Sandy Barbour. Then a savvy AD might come in and sack Dykes and restore hope. Otherwise, year after year, Cal fans will be singing mournful chorus after mournful chorus of the dreaded "Signing Day Blues."

Defending Richard Sherman

Since Sunday's 23-17 win over the San Francisco 49ers, which vaulted Seattle into the Super Bowl, Seahawks' cornerback Richard Sherman has been unmercifully condemned for an over-the-top, post-game TV interview.

Actually he should be commended. He's not a villain, but more like a pioneer. He took a bold detour into virgin territory. What did he do? He said what was on his mind, consequences be damned.

The way people are hating on him you'd think he was a combination of Darth Vader, Attila the Hun and Al Capone, with a touch of Hitler and Lucifer thrown in. All he did, following his sensational, game-saving tip of a pass intended for 49er receiver Michael Crabtree, was vigorously trash Crabtree and do some animated chest-thumping during a brief chat with Erin Andrews minutes after the play. Amped-up and sky-high he demeaned Crabtree as "sorry" and boisterously proclaimed himself the best corner on the planet--which he is. He looked ferocious while Andrews looked terrified.

Everyone expected the usual humble, gentlemanly chatter with Sherman praising the  49ers and Crabtree, stressing that it was a team victory and down-playing his super play. People wanted the same old "aw shucks," "gee whiz," politically correct, cliched line. But Sherman shocked the world by manically storming in the opposite direction, ranting and venting, saying exactly what was on his mind, something you never hear in post-game interviews.

In these interviews you never really believe what the player, coach or manager is saying. If they lost, they're truly pissed off. They're angry at whoever beat them. They may have been robbed by the refs and really want to curse about how they were ripped off. They may feel the opponent is inferior or hate some of the opposing players. But we never get to hear any of  real, post-game venom. We always get the cleaned-up, filtered, sanitized version.

But not this time.

Sherman treated us to something we had never seen, particularly after a game of that magnitude. He said screw being politically correct and screw taking the high road. It was ugly, too ugly for most people. What made it unsettling for many was that Sherman, an angry, dread-locked black man said this to a young, genteel white woman. The racial undertones were jarring

Back in the old days, some may say, Muhammad Ali routinely did what Sherman did on Sunday. Actually Ali didn't. His rants were similar but there was a comic feel to them. You sensed he was pulling your leg. There was nothing really scary about Ali's chatter. Sherman, though, was scary. He went to Stanford but in that post-game blast he wasn't the standard Stanford man. Sherman is from Compton. In that post-game interview he tapped into his Compton roots, turning into the angry black man.

You may hear that what you saw in that interview wasn't the real Sherman, that he's really a nice, gentle guy who's a real team player. That's not what I hear. According to my sources, Sherman is a real jerk, with anger issues. Many of his teammates, report the sources, don't like him. He's apparently a real egomaniac who sincerely believes he's the best and doesn't mind letting the world know it. Also, report the sources, he's a real trash-talker who gets under people's skin, who relishes making people mad.

Sherman got a kick out of dissing Crabtree because he doesn't like the 49er wide receiver. They have a history of hating each other. When it came time to talk about Crabtree on national TV, Sherman did none of the usual sugar-coating. He spoke his mind. It may have been ugly but it was honest. Give him credit for that.

The next day, Sherman apologized. But he apologized for taking attention away from the team. He didn't, however, apologize for the rant. Give him another plus for that..


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Alabama Hires Lane Kiffin--Big Mistake

It's official.

Alabama football coach Nick Saban has lost his mind. How else can you explain his hiring ex-USC head coach Lane Kiffin to be the team's new offensive coordinator? That's what just happened today. It's what Bama fans, in the chat rooms, have been praying wouldn't happen.

The 38-year-old Kiffin, a pariah since USC athletic director Pat Haden fired him in the middle of the night at Los Angeles Airport last September, is now Bama's problem. According to my SC sources, the players celebrated his exit back then.Without his sour, dour presence, SC, reeling after five games, blossomed into a ten-win team.

After that you figured Kiffin would wind up in some obscure place where they'd be happy to get a big name and wouldn't care about the baggage. Big schools, it seemed, would steer clear of such damaged goods. But then along comes Saban....

I always thought Saban was the smartest coach in college football, the one guy you could count on not to make a stupid move, the guy who's several steps ahead of the competition Then he pulls a blunder like this. Possibly losing his last two games, the Iron Bowl and the Sugar Bowl, has jarred a screw loose.

Saban needed a new offensive coordinator because Doug Nussmeier left Thursday to take the OC job at Michigan. Kiffin was brought in as a consultant during the Sugar Bowl preparations to help devise schemes to beat Oklahoma. Reportedly Nussmeier wasn't too happy with Kiffin hanging around, butting in. Maybe that's why he jumped to Michigan.

The Kiffin hiring makes no sense. If a coach is constantly getting run out of town, aren't there red flags all over the place warning you to steer clear of him? After his impressive tenure as offensive coordinator on Pete Carroll's SC staff , Al Davis hired Kiffin as Raiders head coach in 2007. A year later Davis dumped him, calling him a liar and disgrace to the organization. Kiffin's next job, coaching Tennessee, ended ugly after a year in 2009, with hate-filled fans chanting good riddance. From there he landed back at SC for a few seasons, with intermittent success. You know how that ended.

After the SC firing, his players were bitching about him. It's clear that his communication skills need polishing. He badly mishandled the quarterback controversy, dividing the team. His players finally stopped playing for him. Part of coaching is having a good relationship with the players and knowing how to motivate them and keep them focused. In that part of the job Kiffin is a miserable failure.

So why does Saban want to bother with Kiffin? Clearly he sees something the rest of us don't. According to sources close to Bama, many fans and boosters want nothing to do with Kiffin,  regarding him as a cancer who's going to cause nothing but trouble.

OK, Kiffin is a skilled OC. But there are plenty of talented offensive coordinators out there, guys who can do the job as well or better than Kiffin, guys with no tarnished history. Kiffin is one giant headache. Saban will  find out the hard way.

Dump Pau Gasol, the Lakers' Locker Room Cancer

The LA Lakers, a dysfunctional mess as usual, are immersed in yet another soap opera. Once again, there's a cancer eating away at the team, dividing the locker room. This season it's center Pau Gasol. His relationship with his teammates grows uglier by the moment, with the team in free fall, even losing to the NBA's bottom-feeders.

Last season the Lakers' cancer was Dwight Howard, the best center in the NBA, who played hard only when he felt like it, partly because he hated both coach Mike D'Antoni and his fast-paced system. But Howard bailed out at the end of the season. Unfortunately his exit, applauded by knowledgeable Lakers fans, didn't leave the team cancer-free. Now Gasol has become the villain--the lazy prima donna who rarely plays all out and who's always nursing some injury. Lately he's been sitting out games because of an upper respiratory infection. Can you imagine Kobe Bryant or Michael Jordan or LeBron James doing that?

In most games, Gasol is a shadow of the player who anchored the championship teams last decade. On defense his job is to patrol the paint and challenge anyone who drives to the basket. But, because of his half-hearted efforts, opponents look like they're having layup drills throughout the game.

According to two sources close to several players, Gasol's teammates are furious with him. It's a tension-filled locker room, mainly, say the sources, because of the animosity toward Gasol. They're angry at his minimal effort on the court and his sitting out games because of what appears to be a minor ailment.

According to one source, a Laker player told him, referring to Gasol: "The dude just has a bad cold. He should play through that. He's got no heart." Apparently, that's the consensus of his Laker teammates.

The problem is that the team, which is without Kobe Bryant for the next two months, consists of grade B and C role players, mostly young guys with no seniority who are relatively low on the NBA totem pole. Gasol, however, is a veteran former All-Star with one of the league's fattest salaries. According to the sources, none of these young Lakers feel they have enough clout to yell at Gasol, to tell him their true feelings and order him to shape up. So they bitch about him to each other, behind his back. Said one source, if Gasol paid any attention to his teammates he'd realize they resent him and have little respect for him.

Many stars in the league are, like Gasol, highly paid slackers. But they can get away with it because they're in small markets or maybe they're surrounded by first-rate players who pick up the slack. Gasol, however, is being flaky when he's under a national microscope. He's the lone quality player--and by far the highest-paid--on arguably the most popular team in the league. What happens to the Lakers, a premiere NBA franchise, is major national sports news. Gasol is not dogging it in Milwaukee or Charlotte, he's going through the motions on a high-profile team in the second largest media market in the country.

What's really ailing Gasol? One of his big problems is coach D'Antoni, who covets a fast-breaking system that's alien to lumbering, aging, post-up players like Gasol. It was D'Antoni, by the way, who drove Dwight Howard to Houston. Maybe Gasol is angry about something else. Who knows? Who cares? What matters is that he's behaving in a totally unprofessional manner.

The Lakers have tried to trade Gasol, but can't get equal value for him. Realizing the team is desperate to unload the center, interested teams are low-balling the Lakers, offering much less than he's worth.

No matter. What do you do when you have a cancer? You get rid of it. What should the Lakers do with Gasol? Dump him. He's killing the team. His behavior says he doesn't want to be a Laker. So get rid of him. Getting a player or two of lesser talent--players who hustle and work hard and want to be Lakers-- in return for Gasol is a plus.

Gasol's slacker act is tired. The players are sick of  him. Most fans are fed up too. Dump him. The Lakers will be much better off without him

Seattle, Dammit, Will Stroll To The Super Bowl Title

It's over.

Sure, we'll go through the motions and play out the games, but the NFL season is over. There's no more mystery. The commissioner might as well hand the trophy to the Seattle Seahawks now instead of waiting until February. The rest of the season and the playoffs? A mere formality.

This past week of games said it all. Nobody can touch Seattle.

They're real good--scary good.What they did to the New York Giants Sunday, that 23-0 beat-down, bordered on criminal. The Giants, with a paltry 181 yards total offense and five interceptions, never had a chance. The Seattle offense, anchored by QB Russell Wilson and RB Marshawn Lynch,  is among the best, but it's that defense that tortures opposing offensive coordinators. The Seahawks defense is just a notch below the legendary, bone-crushing Chicago Bears' defense of 1985. The Seahawks secondary is not only the best in the league by far, it's also the best of the past decade.

No question that defense is Seattle's primary advantage. But there's something else that solidifies their position in the driver's seat on the road to the Super Bowl--home field advantage. Seattle, which has won 14 straight at CenturyLink Field, is simply unbeatable at home. For the normal team home-field advantage is worth three points. According to some bookies, though, for the Seahawks, it's worth seven. In Seattle, that deafening crowd noise, enhanced by acoustics and sound-system amplification, is incredibly disruptive to opponents and makes it nearly impossible for the opposing QB to call audibles, wiping out a key offensive strategy. For instance, take audibles away from Peyton Manning and he's not nearly as effective.

Seattle, most likely, is at home from now until the Super Bowl, including their final two games, against Arizona and St.Louis, and all their playoff games. All they have to do is win one or both those regular-season games, depending on what happens with their closest NFL competitors. This means that, for the rest of the season and the playoffs, they only play in Seattle, where they never lose, and then in New York--the Super Bowl site--where they just demolished the Giants.

In the NFC, Seattle's only real challengers are New Orleans, Carolina and San Francisco. Scratch the Saints and the Panthers as serious competition, since the Saints suck on the road and Carolina has an exceptional defense but an inconsistent offense that would be smothered in Seattle. The Seahawks' only real competition is the 49ers, who proved they're the second best team in the NFL with a recent, bruising 19-17 victory over Seattle in San Francisco.

When Seattle and San Francisco meet in the playoffs, that's the real Super Bowl. But it's extremely doubtful that the Niners can win in Seattle. It would take a near perfect game--a real long shot. The Niners' defense, which is nearly as good as the Seahawks,' will stifle the Seattle offense, but the Niners' offense will falter in the fourth quarter, due to the unnerving stadium noise and QB Colin Kaepernick's inevitable mistakes. If the 49ers had won more convincingly in San Francisco, Niner fans could be more optimistic about winning the NFC title in Seattle. But that narrow home victory indicates the two teams are neck-in-neck and Seattle's home-field advantage, which is sizable, should boost the Seahawks to the conference championship.

When Seattle clears the San Francisco hurdle, it's clear sailing to a Super Bowl title. That's because the  AFC is a joke. Last week Denver couldn't even beat a so-so San Diego team at home. That Bronco defense was pitiful. So was the New England defense in the Patriots' 24-20 loss to unimpressive Miami. Denver and Miami are the best the AFC has to offer. Neither one, however, has anything close to a championship defense. Besides,  Denver QB Peyton Manning turns soft in the playoffs and the New England offense, without premiere pass receiver Rob Gronkowski, QB Tom Brady's right-hand man, sputters in the red zone.

It's possible, though, that injuries, to QB Wilson, RB Lynch or some key defensive players, could halt Seattle's march to a Super Bowl title. Or horrible weather conditions on Super Bowl Sunday could even the playing field, erasing Seattle's defensive advantage and opening the door to an AFC win.

But we're talking long shots. Sorry, Seattle haters. The Seahawks are the champs. All non-Seattle fans have to look forward to is Seahawks' coach Pete Carroll, an insufferable ass, laughing and celebrating and gloating and talking about how tough that journey to the Super Bowl title really was.

Makes you want to barf.

Behind-The-Scenes Mess in USC Locker Room

You're probably familiar with those reports about things being rosy and hunky-dory in the USC football locker room now that Steve Sarkisian has been hired away from Washington to be the new head coach. Well, don't believe them.

SC football is a mess. There are some really unhappy Trojan players.That's the word from sources close to several members of the team. A bunch of  them are really angry. Regardless of what you hear, some don't like Sarkisian, considering him mediocre and not as good as either Lane Kiffin, who was fired in September, or interim coach Ed Orgeron, who chose to leave when he didn't get the head coaching position..Some players, report the sources, think it's a flat-out bad hire and aren't looking forward to playing for Sark. AD Pat Haden doesn't really know how dissatisfied many players are with the new coach and some of the assistants he's bringing with him.

On the one hand,  the players would like to present a united front, one brimming with positives. Some of that is out there for the media. But, quietly, behind the scenes. they're really miffed at what's happened--that interim coach Ed Orgeron is gone and has been replaced with a coach many in college football circles consider to be difficult, hard to like and just plain second -rate.

Some still think USC rates a coach in the Urban Meyer-Nick Saban class. Sark, however, isn't in that ball park--or anywhere close to it.

Were any other teams knocking at Sark's door? Not really. He wasn't considered a hot, in-demand coach. In fact, inside word from Washington is that some of the boosters were disgruntled with him. The feeling was that he'd elevated the Huskies to a mid-level Pac12 team but wouldn't take them any farther. Up in Seattle there was the beginning of a movement to find a better coach, someone who would raise Washington to that next level, where Oregon and Stanford reside. Many UW followers are happy he's gone.
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So, from the point of view of SC players, this coach, one that wasn't even on solid ground at UW, is what we wind up with? This is the guy that forced beloved Coach O out the door? You can see why Sark isn't the darling of the SC locker room.

Most SC players think Orgeron got a raw deal, that losing to major rivals Notre Dame and UCLA should not have cost him his job. They respected him, played hard for him and looked up to him as a friendly father-figure. They knew he'd leave if he didn't get the permanent head coaching job. Staying on under those circumstances would have been humiliating, so they don't blame him for leaving. They're just bummed out that he's gone.

So the Trojans, who finished 9-4, will be led by offensive coordinator Clay Helton, in whatever bowl game they wind up in--the third head coach of this season. You expect the players to be focused and motivated? Forget it. You can bet gamblers will be be putting their money on whoever is playing against the Trojans in that bowl game.

And, next season, with the Trojans still short-handed because of those long-term penalties from the Bush scandal and many players not that crazy about the new leader, don't expect much from this team. The other eleven teams in the conference are already rejoicing.







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