It may be a bit of a stretch to call Satoshi Ishii the Michael Phelps of Japan, but not by much. His victory in the heavyweight judo competition at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing was easily the defining moment of the games for his countrymen and was considered by most media outlets the #1 highlight of the year in all of sports.
The New England Patriots looked nothing like a team that had gone undefeated at home all season, let alone one of the dominant teams of the past few years. The Baltimore Ravens took advantage of a weak New England rushing defense and some untimely mistakes by QB Tom Brady to lead 14-0 just five minutes. They would end the first quarter up 24-0 and would never be seriously threatened as they coasted to a 33-14 victory in Sunday’s NFL Wildcard game. Baltimore used 234 yards on the ground and three rushing touchdowns to force the Patriots to play from behind, and then let their defense do the rest.
The New Orleans Hornets got some good news regarding injured point guard Chris Paul on Wednesday. Paul will undergo arthroscopic surgery on his left knee on Thursday, and the diagnosis is favorable for a return before the playoffs. Paul suffered a partially torn meniscus in a game against Golden State last week. Preliminary diagnoses suggested that he’d be out of action one to two months. There had been some initial concern that he could be done for the season.
The Atlanta Falcons didn’t so much win their Sunday Night NFL Football game against the Chicago Bears as much as the Bears lost it. A series of costly mistakes and turnovers in the red zone negated an otherwise solid road effort for the Bears, as Atlanta held on to win 21-14 at the Georgia Dome. Chicago held a decisive edge in most of the statistical categories, but was undone by untimely turnovers. Atlanta improved to 4-1 with the victory while Chicago slipped to 3-2.
Having survived a couple of World Wars, countless recessions, the indignation of lifestyle police, and most recently the video game phenomenon it appeared that pinball was just too tough to kill. That’s why it was a surprise when WMS Industries, the dominant player in the industry for the past decade and the maker of Williams and Bally machines, announced that it was getting out of the business several years ago. Shed no tears for WMS, who is making money hand over fist with their video poker and slot machine division. In fact, following the announcement that they were getting out of the pinball business the company’s stock experienced a small but substantial gain.
The Toronto Argonauts appeared to be on the verge of breaking their eight game home losing streak, entering the fourth quarter with a 25-14 lead over the BC Lions. Unfortunately, they ended up on the wrong end of a 36-28 final score that ran their streak of futility at the Rogers Centre to nine games. It was also Toronto’s ninth consecutive loss to BC. BC improved to 3-4 with the victory, while Toronto’s record slipped to 2-5.
Despite dominating the winless St. Louis Ram on the stat sheet, the Jacksonville Jaguars needed overtime to eke out a 23-20 home field victory over arguably the worst team in the NFL. Based on their statistical superiority, the Jags should have made mincemeat out of the hapless Rams-they had 33 first downs to 13 for St. Louis, held a 492-262 overall yardage edge and had possession of the ball for 42:12 compared to 24:48 for the Rams. Jacksonville evened their record at 3-3 while the Rams dropped to 0-6.
Despite losing to the New Orleans Saints in their NFL preseason opener 17-7, the Cincinnati Bengals had a lot to be happy about. Most significantly, they were elated over the return of QB Carson Palmer after he’d missed most of the last NFL season. His solid performance gave them even more to be happy about despite being on the wrong end of the final score. When you live in Cincinnati, however, you’re used to having to take what you get so Palmer’s serviceable performance led to mass celebration in the streets of ‘The Queen City’.
The offensively struggling Kansas City Chiefs have finally found a way to win-play a team with a more stagnant offense than their own. The Chiefs gave Todd Haley his first win as a NFL head coach on Sunday with a—6 win over the Washington Redskins. Kansas City won despite not scoring a touchdown, compiling their– points via 4 Ryan Succop field goals and a game ending safety.
Veteran quarterback Jeff Garcia was released earlier this week by the Philadelphia Eagles, a victim of too many quarterbacks on the roster. Now that hes no longer under contract to a NFL team, hes letting his feelings be known about another one of his recent employers–the Oakland Raiders. There may be no team in the NFL more desperate for a quarterback than the Raiders, but Garcia quickly let it be known that he has no interest in returning to Oakland in an interview with Fox Sports Radio in which he slammed the teams management and suggested that current quarterback Jamarcus Russell was in over his head.
