BRONCOS VS. BEARS  // WILL ARMY BEAT NAVY? // TIGER WOODS & THE WAY BACK.

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            UNTIL AFTER THE CURRENT NFL SEASON, “SPORTS NOTEBOOK” WILL POST NEW EVERY MONDAY INSTEAD OF ON TUESDAY, continuing with a new post every Friday.  Editor, Marvin Leibstone. Comments to: mlresources1@aol.com

BRONCOS VS. BEARS  ---  SURELY the Denver Broncos could qualify as the NFL season’s comeback story, having won five games in a row after a 2-5 record. Now at 7-5, the Broncos will be challenged by the Chicago Bears at Mile High Stadium on Sunday, a team that is also 7-5, and while the Broncos are currently 2-3 playing at Mile High and the Bears 5-2 playing at home, the Broncos are 5-2 away from Denver and the Bears 3-2 at home, the implication a sort of almost equal match-up.

And within the NFL’s American Conference, Denver is tied for fifth place, and, in the National Conference, Chicago is tied for fourth, another sign of nearly equal prowess. Moreover, the two teams are roughly the same in average number of yards gained per game since the start of the season, Chicago with 326 per game, Denver, 315.

It’s in the passing game where Chicago’s data implies an edge if the quarterback replacing Jay Cutler (Caleb Hanie) can be as effective as Cutler (out from injury), in that Chicago has averaged 206 passing yards per game, Denver accruing 155, although Denver tops Chicago in number of rushing yards per game, 158 over 119.

Too, across Denver’s last five games it gathered up a total of 123 points, while Chicago totaled 118 from its last five games, another indication of competition involving teams of fairly equal power and skills. 

However, an edge can also be talked up for Denver, as well, in that Chicago lost its last two games to Kansas City and Oakland, teams that the Broncos have defeated this season. Perhaps the more informed take on the upcoming game, is this: “If Denver wins, it will be from a contradiction, from conventional and also unorthodox football,” that is, the conventional being Denver’s defense as a consistent spoiler of the Bears passing efforts via a strong and smothering secondary and a line pressuring Chicago’s quarterback to throw poorly or get sacked, and the unconventional being a Tim Tebow-led offense that will have scored from overriding the Bears defense with the totally unexpected, something as far from a traditional offense as could be accomplished, possibly from forced and unplanned maneuvers with hand-offs and short passes to receivers, or Tebow himself evading and moving lightning-fast, the result being lots of first downs, then a touchdown or field goal, similar to last week’s Denver win vs. Minnesota, when the Broncos achieved numerous first downs in the last half.

But Chicago's defense won’t be easy to outwit and penetrate. A Denver win will be near the margin, possibly from a three or four point lead, as happened for the Broncos vs. San Diego two weeks ago, a win with grit and spur of the moment innovation instead of what had been strategized prior to kick-off.  

ARMY/NAVY--- THE annual Army/Navy game has remained among the country’s steadier football rivalries throughout the decade, in spite of the growing popularity of college games outside the service academy realm, tomorrow’s challenge being the 112^th Army/Navy match, dominated by Annapolis having 55 wins over West Point’s 49, last year’s game Annapolis 31, West Point 17.

Annapolis has been dominant for nine straight seasons, West Point last beating the Midshipmen in 2001, 27-16. This year, however, it’s anyone’s guess as to which can win, for both schools are of similar 2011 records. Though not high-end by any kind of call, Navy is at 4-7, Army is at 3-8.

Analysts are hanging with Navy by more than a touchdown, possibly because Navy ranks in the top five among college teams rushing the football more than relying on a passing game. Army also prefers a run the ball strategy, but Army is far from having accrued the greater than 312 rushing yards that Navy has obtained with one game left to the 2011 season.

So, Army’s chances to win could exist within a power defense that forces Navy’s quarterback to pass the football more than rush, as Navy’s quarterback has a poor pass completion record. This said, Army hasn’t been a high-end passing team, either. Unfortunate, too, is that Army’s defense has not been steady at derailing an aggressive field assault, which has been Navy’s best shot all season. BUT---the game of football doesn’t care about what’s been; it only cares about what a team can do “in the Now,” that is, post-kickoff.

In sum, expect College Football 101 on Saturday: the team that breaks into and ruins the other’s running game will be the team that prevails.

TIGER WOODS ---  Having  won a major golf tourney for the first time in two years isn’t the lighted torch for immediately being recognized as comeback athlete of the year, even if you are Tiger Woods and you’ve won the Chevron Challenge and jumped immediately from 52d in the world rankings to 21^st, but it is an official leap forward and Woods is still the most popular name in American golf circles---there’s a lot of belief in him still, accompanied by hope that he’ll get his true groove back soon and stay with it.

Yet if Woods is going to go all the way and return to being, say, among the top five players in professional golf, it will be a slow ascent, continuing with the current Abu Dhabi go-round..

What’s to hold Woods back? A deep and thorough look at the question advises that only Tiger himself could get in the way, and that the Chevron win could be an indication that he has won a battle against those un-nameable impediments that can interfere with an athlete’s performance when, for whatever reason, he or she has experienced a great deal of public embarrassment.

Sure, some superfine athletes can return to their game after committing a crime and never lose their touch, while most exceptional athletes have more normal reactions to such mistakes, they grieve, though many fail to know when to get off the grief bus and they are never the same again, their game drops considerably, they can’t recover---, which probably isn’t Tiger Woods.

That Woods hasn’t walked away from his troubles and gone into retirement and isolation, plus the fact that he’s faced humiliation squarely and with acceptance over an extended period of time, such suggests that he contains more than enough self-confidence for a return to championship level, while during the Chevron challenge his better skill-sets were back and shining.

END/ml