Gotta Have Skin in the Game

How can you be interested in a sport if you have no team in the hunt?

In the case of college football, I don’t know why I watch college football at all. If it were just for Rutgers, there would be no way I could watch it. It’s hard to get interested in a game for which your local representative plays so poorly. Speaking as a Rutgers alumnus, thank you very much but I’d rather have no football program at all than have to be embarrassed every week by Rutgers and the complacent Greg Schiano. Just to put perspective around how bad Rutgers really is, Schiano’s defense against the likes of Cincinnati was torched for 60 or so points while Connecticut just held them to 17 points. I could grab a couple of kids off the street who’d play better pass defense than Schiano’s sorry group in the secondary.

Nevertheless, I’m sitting here watching Michigan State start to pound Penn State (it’s now 21-10) . And why exactly? Well, Penn State after all has Joe Paterno as the head coach and it’s a clean program too, as far as anyone can tell. What’s not to like about Penn State? They always play defense and very seldom embarrass themselves. They are the anti-Rutgers.

Ohio State too in the Big Ten gets some of my attention if only because my son went to school in Ohio and I can recall a great time watching an OSU game in a shopping mall in Columbus. I also had a friend and co-worker whose daily fervor for the Buckeyes was easily enough to get me excited. But if it weren’t for those two teams, I wouldn’t be watching at all. You have to have a team in the hunt…some skin in the game. That rooting interest can spring from locale of course but only as modified by a team’s ownership and management and players from year to year. Oh yeah, and whether they win or not.

If loyalties depended entirely on wins and losses though, everybody’d be a Yankee fan. Happily for human nature and pocket books everywhere, that is not the case.

My chief interest this time of year goes to professional football, mostly, to be honest, because that’s where my skin in the game resides. We live in the New York area, of course, so why would I like any other team besides the Giants or Jets?

The answer lies in fantasy football, of course, a place to field my very own team. So my rooting interest this Thanksgiving was firmly with the Saints and Drew Brees, who had the skill and moxy to throw long down the field on a third down to hit Bobby Meachem in stride for about 60 yards before delivering a perfect strike to, who else, Lance Moore for a touchdown. And I managed to get a glimpse in the 4 o’clock game of Miles Austin, wide receiver for Dallas and Dem Crabs, racing around the end for about 60 yards and a TD against the Lions.

But overall it was a bad day. The Saints scored mostly on the ground and Jahvid Best didn’t play at all, making my decision to bench Ahmad Bradshaw look ridiculous, despite Coughlin’s foolish decision to punish him. My opponent didn’t fare too well either though, starting with Mark Sanchez, who didn’t exactly shine in the Jets victory over the Bungles. And his star player, Jacksonville’s Maurice Jones-Drew, has to face the Giants on Sunday, a matchup that should favor the Giants, who aren’t as yet totally decimated on the defensive side of the ball.

If I can be said to have a team at all in the NFL, it is the Giants, who are in trouble now after losing several key players to injuries. The Giants are owned by one of the most venerable football families in the universe, the Maras. They’ve won multiple Super Bowls and have brought us great players and great management too. They have a long-time philosophy that stresses the running game and defense. Their GM’s and coaches have generally excelled over the years. Although they might not quite match the Rooneys in Pittsburgh, they are a team well worthy of commanding my attention.

On the other hand are the Jets. Although I like the head coach, the owner’s a little too theatrical for me. He’ll always take the hit in my mind for Brett Favre becoming a Jet, thus single-handedly taking them out of the playoffs. Their GM is totally heartless, a reflection of ownership too, I guess, as he has shown year after year, most recently in the dumping of Leon Washington. The players themselves are a mixed bunch. They have a bunch of guys that are hard to warm up to, Bart Scott, Braylon Edwards, and yes, even Santonio Holmes and his remarkable elusiveness in the end zone. But their success is hard to ignore despite their frailties in the character department.

My point is, it’s easy to be an NFL fan, less so for NCAA football and, heretofore at least, it’s been almost impossible to follow any brand of basketball, be it NBA, NCAA or otherwise. Once again, those feelings can be directly traced to the sorry state of the Knicks, Nets, Rutgers and Seton Hall. If our local team in either MLB league were the likes of the Chicago Cubs, it’d surely affect your love for the game and the league bringing it to you.

Happily for basketball fans, the Knicks mismanagement has considerably improved and the Nets have changed dramatically for the better. The Knicks finally have some players D’Antoni actually likes and the Nets under Avery Johnson have begun to show some predilection for playing on the defensive side of the ball. I’m enjoying basketball again.

I now find myself watching the local games, the NBA Network and yes, I even crave the witticisms of Charles Barkley. I even joined a public fantasy basketball league. Who’s next? Hubie Brown?