Super Bowl Predictions

Every year, when the Super Bowl rolls around, Las Vegas blows up with prop bets for the big game. There is the mundane betting pool: how many points will be scored, who will win, how many yards will quarterback A throw for, etc.

Then there is the eccentric betting pool: what will the coin toss be, what color will the Gatorade dumped on the winning coach be, how many times will the halftime show be censored, etc.

I'm going with the easy stuff for this post, because I just want to get out there my pick for who wins.

That said, here's my Super Bowl Prediction:

Denver Broncos 28
Seattle Seahawks 27

I think both teams are easily capable of winning the Super Bowl. Seattle is the best defense in the league. Denver is the best offense.

Of course, Seattle, and in particular, CB Richard Sherman, has been chirpy since defeating San Francisco. Sherman absolutely trashed 49ers WR Michael Crabtree, but Crabtree hit back with a rather true statement: with the exception of one or two plays, the Niners WRs had good games against the Seahawks D.

If San Francisco was able to do that, imagine what Peyton Manning can do. I think Peyton will find the holes in Seattle's secondary and exploit them, allowing the Broncos running game to make a lot of yards. Seattle will hang with them, but I think Denver will hoist the Lombardi trophy when all is said and done.

Formula 1: More Cars, Testing at Jerez, and the First Crash of the Year

Last Friday I brought up the first few Formula 1 cars to be unveiled this year, and the contenders were a drab lot to say the least. For this edition of The Right Wing, testing has started at Jerez, and with it more cars have seen the light of day for the first time.

Ferrari F14T

Ferrari unveiled the new F14T contender for the 2014 season and, when I saw it, my first thought was that someone sat on the nose before the carbon fiber had dried. The nose has been likened to a vacuum cleaner, and that seems an apt analogy, as it's possible this car will suck. Sorry, I had to take the cheap joke.

Ferrari has assembled a fantastic driver lineup for the upcoming season. Fernando Alonso was already the lead driver for the scuderia, but they pulled off a great coup in signing Kimi Raikkonen away from Lotus. If they can produce a car that fits only a portion of their driving talent, then Ferrari could be in for a good year.

Red Bull Renault RB10

For the last few years no one has been able to beat Red Bull and, more specifically, no one has been able to beat Sebastian Vettel. Red Bull master designer Adrian Newey has supplied the team with this year's contender, the RB10. Like the cars described last week, the RB10 has a rather unfortunate nose design.

If you haven't figured this out by now, the nose designs for the new cars are terrifying. We just thought 2012, with the insistence of Geoff, was bad. This is worse. At least some of the teams are innovating, like...

Caterham CT05

Caterham may have the most innovative design so far. The nose fits the bill of the other cars, with the tapered bluntness, but it appears that they like noses, so they gave their car two of them. The front wing is attached directly to the tapered nose. I'm wondering if the pylon of a blunted nose can be tweaked to  increase or decrease front-end downforce for clockwise and counterclockwise circuits.

For all the innovation that went into the nose, I'm beginning to think that the Caterham technical team poured all their budget into that, as the rest of the car is very plain. The sides of the cockpit are not formed at all, but just flat and seeminbly not aerodynamic in the least.

Force India VMJ07

The 2014 contender from Force India, the VMJ07, features one of the biggest depatures from norm we've seen so far this year in terms of liveries. For the first time in my memory, a Force India car will feature black as a key portion of the color scheme...and it looks fantastic.

Again, we have a car with the tapered bluntness that is the weird regulation nose. Force India avoided the awkward nose designs of Caterham and Ferrari, but instead went along the lines of Red Bull. Still, the livery looks good...

Scuderia Toro Rosso STR9

The Red Bull "B-Team" unveiled the STR9. I liked the STR cars better back when they said Toro Rosso. Lately, the biggest difference between the STR and the RBR has been the gold or yellow on the nose. This year's nose on the STR is very muppet-esque.

Yes, that's a joke, but the nose is curved far more than any other competitor in the field so far. Toro Rosso hasn't really cracked the sharp end of the grid since a young guy names Sebastian Vettel took the Scuderia to the top of the podium at Monza in 2008. I'm not sure this car will take them very far either.

Mercedes W05

Without a doubt this is the best looking car produced so far this year. Yes, the nose is very similar to the Ferrari F14T, but it feels like Mercedes got it right. The color scheme is similar to McLaren's MP4-29, but technically Mercedes was doing this first.  I would love to see the Mercedes driver roster of Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg pilot the W05 to several wins and podiums, and I would love to see Hamilton win another Driver's Title.

Hopefully this is the car to do that for them. Of course...

The First Crash of the Year

Lewis Hamilton has already binned the W05 at Jerez. I'm not sure if that's a good sign or a bad omen.

Greg Maddux, the Hall of Fame, and Some Really, Really, Really Ugly Cars

Greg Maddux and the Missing Logo

The MLB Hall of Fame class was recently announced, and it includes Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, and Frank Thomas. Managers Tony LaRussa and Bobby Cox were also inducted. Glavine and Cox will both wear the Braves logo on their plaques. Thomas will feature the White Sox logo.

Maddux and LaRussa will not have a logo at all on their plaques. Maddux did so by choice, so as not to snub either Atlanta or Chicago. He stated “…I grew up in baseball in Chicago, and then we had just an amazing experience in Atlanta with the Braves. It's impossible for me to choose one of those teams for my Hall of Fame plaque, as the fans of both clubs in each of those cities were so wonderful. I can't think of having my Hall of Fame induction without support of both of those fan bases, so, for that reason, the cap on my Hall of Fame plaque will not feature a logo.” Contrary to the comments of some Braves fans, this is a darn classy move by Maddux, but who would expect anything less?

The calls to “un-retire” Maddux’s number in Atlanta are insipid. The guy gave the Braves many good years, and was part of the most dominant pitching rotation in baseball, along with the aforementioned Glavine, John Smoltz, and Steve Avery. Maddux was drafted by the Cubs in 1982, and he joined the Braves in 1992. Two brief stopovers with the Padres and Dodgers would eventually lead Maddux back to the Cubs to finish off one of the best careers in baseball history.

Much noise was made over Maddux not being unanimously elected to the Hall, but no one has been unanimously elected, and some “purists” say that if Babe Ruth or Ty Cobb or Honus Wagner weren’t unanimous selections, then no one should be. These people are wrong, but they’re also part of a much entrenched system that will be difficult to overhaul.

Maddux not having a logo on his cap isn’t that big of a deal, in the grand scheme of things.

Unveiling Some Formula 1 Cars

The last time I wrote about the unveiling of Formula 1 cars, we were being smothered by the step-nose, that I unceremoniously decided should be named Geoff. The regulations for the 2014 season appear to have learned a lesson from 2013, but it was the wrong lesson to learn.

Williams unveiled a computer rendering of their 2014 contender, and it’s like something right out of an rFactor game. The obvious point of revulsion is the nose. Regulations have tightened even further on how tall the nose can be, and to fit the regs, engineers have created what can only be called an anteater.

The nose tapers to a blunt point (I’ll leave you to figure out how something can taper and be blunt at the same time) that appears to be only millimeters off the ground. I fear that if a gnat or flea bounces in front of these cars it may shred right through the cockpit.

McLaren wasn’t far behind in their unveiling, actually revealing a built car: the MP4-29. The livery, which I assume is a test livery, as it is quite devoid of sponsorship logos, is very nearly the same silver as the Mercedes F1 team. The nose, like the Williams, tapers down to a rounded off point much lower than I can remember the modern (post 2009) cars having. I came into the sport during the days of the double front wings and aerodynamic doodads. Those were the dark days of 2008.

I normally write that McLaren produces the best looking car, but so far I’m not sold on this. Perhaps once they add a true primary sponsor the livery will change significantly. For now, it looks like McLaren took the lead from Austin Powers in Goldmember and produced Silvermember.

Lotus, mere minutes later, revealed the E22…or, rather, a photoshopped version of the E21 with the new nose. Of the cars unveiled so far, this might actually be my favorite. The livery remains much the same as last year, though with some updates. New sponsors adorn the car, like Yotaphone and PDVSA, the primary backer of new Lotus driver Pastor Maldonado.

The biggest difference between the E22 and the MP4-29 is the nose. Lotus opted for a two-prong nose that appears to act as support struts for the front wing. My only gripe with the rendered image that Lotus provided is that the nose doesn’t work perspectively. The left-hand prong should be as long as the right-hand prong, considering the angle at which the car is sitting. I’d like to see this car head-on, as that might change my opinion of it.

Formula 1 News

In other F1 news, former Lotus boss Eric Boullier has left the building. That’s why I wrote “former.” The word on the street is that Boullier is headed for Woking to take over the team boss position for McLaren.

Michael Schumacher is still in a coma after sustaining a brain injury while falling during a skiing trip with his family. The injury is similar to the one suffered by actress Natasha Richardson that eventually led to her death. Schumacher was able to get to a hospital faster than Richardson, but the ordeal has left him comatose after a couple of brain surgeries. It is unknown if he will ever awaken and, if he does, it is unknown what type of personality he would have, or what kind of lingering damage remains.

UGA will NEVER win a National Title under Mark Richt

There. That title got your attention, didn't it? And yes, I mean it. I truly don't believe the Georgia Bulldogs will ever win a National Championship while Mark Richt is in charge. Read on to find out why...

The Georgia Bulldogs have reached the end of their season, and it was a rather flat end. The Dawgs lost the Gator Bowl to unranked Nebraska. Georgia found new and exciting ways of beating themselves in this game. The offensive play-calling was questionable at best. On more than one occasion, the Dawgs were faced with third down and ten yards to go. The call? An off-tackle run. This worked once, giving the Dawgs fourth and short. The call here? Pass play toward the end zone.

The Bulldogs were relatively good on offense almost all year, given that they were throttled by injury. We knew the offense was going to have to keep Georgia in games, and we knew our offense was good enough to do just that.  But somehow, they forgot how to find the end zone in this game, not scoring a touchdown until deep into the second half. Four trips inside the Nebraska 30 resulted in four field goals. That’s simply not good enough. Someone on the Georgia coaching staff needs to sternly question Mike Bobo about his play selection.

The defense shouldered a lot of blame, as did Defensive Coordinator Todd Grantham. We have to admit that Grantham was in a tough spot. We all knew going into this season that the defense was young and would probably take an entire season to come together. That's what happens when you have so many players without collegiate experience. You cannot coach someone out of an injury. The new normal in football is the fact that tackles are going lower and lower in order to avoid targeting. So we'll keep seeing guys getting their knees blown out, but thank God no one is getting hit where they have actual padding and protective devices. If anyone gets hit there, we have to throw them out of the game.

I'm not laying the blame on injury, though.

But that’s how this season went for Georgia. Dawgnation wants more. We want conference titles, and we want national titles. I haven’t seen a National Championship in my lifetime. Meanwhile, the state next door, that everyone loves to rag on, is playing for what could be its fifth consecutive national championship.

And I believe I know why Georgia is never in that discussion. It’s not because of talent, because the Dawgs often have a highly-ranked recruiting class. It’s because we have a coach who is such a nice guy. Mark Richt, who is one of the best all-around human beings you’re ever likely to meet, is simply too nice to win a national championship. He’s the kind of nice-guy coach who takes his foot of the gas the moment his team goes up by three touchdowns. In his tenure at Georgia, the Dawgs have never scored 70 points in a game. In fact, it’s been nearly 20 full years since Georgia hung 70 on someone. They’ve scored 60+ a few times, the most recent being three seasons ago. Meanwhile, one of the teams contesting for the National Championship this year, Florida State, scored 60 or more three times this season alone. They scored 80 in one game.

Is a high point total required? No. If you play a tough enough schedule, you don’t need the blowouts. The SEC-homer in me wants to say that Georgia plays a tough schedule every year. Last season this was certainly true, as the Dawgs played three top-8 teams in their first four games. But style points are required.

But I'm rambling now... I'm going to stand by my original point. Mark Richt is simply too nice to win a National Championship. Look at the guys who have won National Championships...guys like Spurrier, Saban, and Meyer. Anyone think they can borrow some sugar from any of those guys? No? Mark Richt would probably bring the sugar to your house and help you cook.