NFL: WEEK 4, OUTLOOK; BRONCOS, EAGLES // MLB: COUNTDOWN

FOR MORE ANALYSIS, GO TO "MILE HIGH SPORTS RADIO," AM1510 or FM93.7, and to Denver’s best sports blogging team, milehighsports.com. SPORTS NOTEBOOK posts its columns Tuesday and Friday of each week. Ed. & Publ., Marvin Leibstone; Copy & Mng. Ed., Gail Kleiner. . . //. . . NFL--- During Week 4 of the current NFL season, seven franchises will strive to be 4-0, to be perfect pack leaders if such is to be measured by not having lost a competition as Week 5 of 16 approaches. Of these seven, the National Conference West’s leading team, the Seattle Seahawks, will face the American Conference South’s number one team, the 2-1 Houston Texans, while the NC North’s number one franchise, the Chicago Bears, will meet the NC North’s 2-1 Detroit Lions, and on Monday the NC South’s numero uno New Orleans Saints will face the AC East’s 3-0 Miami Dolphins. In addition, the AC West’s first position franchise, the Denver Broncos, will face the 1-2 Philadelphia Eagles, while the AC West’s second place team, the Kansas City Chiefs, will be challenged by the 0-3 New York Giants, and the AC East’s number one team, the New England Patriots, by the NC South’s 1-2 Atlanta Falcons. Also during Week 4, two other 2-1 teams will be striving to stay division leaders, the AC North’s Cincinnati Bengals versus the AC North’s 1-2 Cleveland Browns, and the NC East’s Dallas Cowboys vs. the AC West’s 1-2 San Diego Chargers. . . Note that for Week 4, six of the seven 3-0 teams will NOT be facing any of the winless (0-3) organizations, the exception being the N.E. Patriots vs. the winless N.Y. Giants. Five other NFL franchises are winless---the NC East’s Washington Redskins, the NC North’s Minnesota Vikings, the NC South’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the AC North’s Pittsburgh Steelers and the AC South’s Jacksonville Jaguars. . . Were all of this a track meet, we’d be describing Week 4 as the first lap of a 1,600 meter (one mile) race, and indeed NFL Week 4 has always been a definite juncture, a season’s turning point when as many as seven 3-0 franchises could pick up a loss, and possibly four of six 0-3 franchises could secure a win. Given the match-ups for Sunday, the Saints vs. Dolphins game will certainly cause a 3-0 team to enter Week 5 at 3-1, the winner from 4-0. And, from what we’ve seen of the Giants in Weeks 1 through 3, the K.C. Chiefs could become a 4-0 team on Sunday. From season results so far, the Broncos appear to have what it takes to defeat the Eagles and become 4-0, as well. Except for the AC South’s 2-1 Indianapolis Colts defeating the AC South’s 0-3 Jaguars, no other Sunday games have the makings of a sure thing one side or the other. . . //. . . BRONCOS, EAGLES---THE Denver Broncos defense squad has been at a level preventing the return to an opposing team of an equal or greater number of points gained by the Broncos Peyton Manning-led offense. When it comes to the meaning of “return,” for the Broncos defense it’s about getting the ball back to Manning + crew quickly, it’s a defense that wants to be seated on a bench, watching a Manning pass convert to points through receptions and runs executed by receivers Eric Decker, Demaryius Thomas, Julius Thomas and Wes Welker; or from a Denver RB rushing and diving for another down, e.g., phenom Knowshon Moreno. To diminish these successful executions of classic football by the Broncos, the Eagles will need to accentuate/repeat and succeed at a standard defense tactic, “the pass rush,” and at surprise variations on an offense theme, “the read-option,” from the former disorienting QB Manning (could any boxer today do that to Floyd Mayweather, Jr. "consistently?"), and from the latter confusing the Broncos defense and spreading it thin and wide, possible only if the Denver defense can no longer perform as it has in Weeks 1 through 3. Necessary for the Eagles pass rush will be the sighting and exploitation of holes in Denver’s pass protection line-up should any holes exist, and required for an Eagles rendering of the read-option will be Eagles QB, Michael Vick, having better pass protection than he’s had in previous games (Vick was sacked five times by the Chiefs pass rush, Week 3). Note, however, that the Broncos defense has given up more than 20 points to an opposing offense in each of the Broncos three games won to date. That’s more points given away in the same number of games than by the winless (0-3) team, the Buccaneers, and the same number of points handed out by another 0-3 franchise, the Giants, which signals that defeating the Eagles on Sunday could again rest most heavily on the shoulders of the Manning-led offense, its three winning games this season including 49, 41 and 37 points per. . . //. . . MLB--- THE difference in number of wins involving the American League’s top team, the AL East’s Boston Red Sox, and the National League’s best, the NL East’s Atlanta Braves and the St. Louis Cardinals, is slight, the Red Sox with 96, the NL teams tied at 94. Remaining division leading clubs of both leagues is also of a small difference from the Red Sox, each with wins ranging from 91 to 94. If the Red Sox can win its final three games of the season, they will finish with 99 wins, 63 losses, highest for MLB-2013 (regular season). Lowest among division leaders today are the NL West’s Los Angeles Dodgers, 91-67. Presently, then, the 2013 MLB playoffs will include the NL West's division leading Dodgers, NL Central's Cardinals, the NL East's Braves, the AL’s Red Sox, the AL West’s 94-65 Oakland Athletics, and the AL Central’s 93-66 Detroit Tigers, also runner-ups from NL Central, the 91-68 Pittsburgh Pirates and 90-69 Cincinnati Reds. So, today there are no safe MLB playoff predictions re. which teams will dominate the year’s LC’s and then the World Series. END/ml

NFL: WEEK 3 RESULTS; RAIDERS LOSE TO BRONCOS // MLB: END-OF-THE-LINE LEADERS; COLORADO ROCKIES, EMBLEMATIC OF ABOVE-THE-MARGIN BASEBALL, IN SPITE OF LOSSES.

FOR MORE ANALYSIS, GO TO "MILE HIGH SPORTS RADIO," AM1510 or FM93.7, and to Denver’s best sports blogging team, milehighsports.com. SPORTS NOTEBOOK posts its columns Tuesday and Friday of each week. Ed. & Publ., Marvin Leibstone; Copy & Mng. Ed., Gail Kleiner. . . // . . . NFL: WEEK 3---WEEK 3 has resulted in seven franchises owning the stratosphere, that of the perfect record. These three wins/zero losses (3-0) teams are the National Conference West’s Seattle Seahawks, NC North’s Chicago Bears, NC South’s New Orleans Saints, and the American Conference West’s Denver Broncos and Kansas City Chiefs, the AC East’s New England Patriots and the Miami Dolphins. Meanwhile, Week 3 put seven NFL teams at the two wins/one loss (2-1) position, the NC East’s Dallas Cowboys, NC North’s Detroit Lions, AC East’s New York Jets, AC North’s Cincinnati Bengals and Baltimore Ravens, the AC South’s Houston Texans and Indianapolis Colts. Week 3 also delivered 11 franchises to the one win/two losses (1-2) level, the NC West’s St. Louis Rams, San Francisco 49ers and Arizona Cardinals, NC East’s Philadelphia Eagles, NC North’s Green Bay Packers, NC South’s Carolina Panthers and the Atlanta Falcons, the AC West’s Oakland Raiders and San Diego Chargers, AC East’s Buffalo Bills, and the AC North’s Cleveland Browns. And, six franchises are still where prairie dogs sleep, zero wins/three losses (0-3), the NC East’s N.Y. Giants and Washington Redskins, NC North’s Minnesota Vikings, the NC South’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers, AC North’s Pittsburgh Steelers, the AC South’s Jacksonville Jaguars. Were the 32-team NFL being compared today with another 32-organization professional football league, it’d be under .500, a losing establishment (not counting the one team in Bye Week). However, that comparison is not in Football Planet’s reality destiny. What is sadly real are the Week 3 surprises, that even at this early juncture of the NFL 16-game regular season some teams that were expected to have been explosive and at the top are having trouble sucking air, i.e., hot teams of last season thought to be leaders by now, e.g., the 1-2 Falcons, 1-2 Packers, 0-3 Redskins and 0-3 Giants. And, hey, the Chiefs and Dolphins, at 3-0? Along that popular scale of one through ten, roughly “the Expected” gets a seven, and ballpark thinking gives “the Unexpected,” a three. So, though with some “same ol’ same-o” amidst, the NFL still isn’t a Groundhog Day enterprise. . . // . . . RAIDERS, BRONCOS---ABOUT the best that can be said regarding the now 1-2 Oakland Raiders as they lost to the currently 3-0 Denver Broncos last night, 37-21, is that they were able to witness a nearly perfect offense “up close & personal.” Before their eyes, an offense led by Broncos quarterback, Peyton Manning, performed that near-perfect attack role, only a few loose threads in the weave, the Manning readings and receiver responses to the Raiders defense surely a narrative of best options executed for “intended results.” Possessing the football for more than half of game time (approximately 36 minutes), the Broncos offense set up 73 plays and 31 first downs that became 536 total net yards, averaging around 7.3 yards per play, 35 of these yards gained from rushing (4.7 average yards were gained from these Broncos rushes), with average yards gained from each pass play above 9.0. QB Manning passed for 374 yards, completing 32 of 37 passes, three for touchdowns. To date, Manning has thrown for 12 TD’s, thus 84 points of the 127 put up by the Broncos during Weeks 1 through 3. . . Yet the Raiders did score 21 points, and they held the Broncos to just three points gained in the game’s third quarter, and Raiders wide receiver Denarius Moore gained 124 yards, second best in the game to Broncos WR Eric Decker’s 133 yards, suggesting Broncos defense vulnerabilities. Commendable, however, is that the Broncos vs. Raiders defense was almost a B-team operation, in that A-listers Von Miller, Champ Bailey and others have been sidelined from injuries or, as in Miller’s case and putting it mildly, from behavior issues. Week 4 and subsequent weeks will address the Broncos offense endurance, its consistency of skills for securing a now perfect record. With the eventual A-list defense in play, that job could be easier for Manning & Crew, and yet the defense surrogates have been better at their tasks than Broncos primary defense squads of recent seasons. Next week, the Broncos will face a team of the more formidable offense and defense than that shown by the Raiders last night, the now 1-2 Philadelphia Eagles (QB, Michael Vick). . . // . . . MLB: SEVEN MLB clubs that are already playoff bound or very close to it have won more than 90 games apiece, the NL West’s Los Angeles Dodgers, NL Central’s St. Louis Cardinals, Cincinnati Reds and Pittsburgh Pirates, the NL South’s Atlanta Braves, the American League West’s Oakland Athletics, the AL Central’s Detroit Tigers and the AL East’s Boston Red Sox. The Red Sox are leading both MLB leagues from 95 won games and 62 losses, with an opportunity to be the only team to win 100 or more games during the 2013 season. Best re. number of wins in the NL are the NL East’s Atlanta Braves and Cardinals, both with 92 wins. . . Among the seven top teams, five are leading their divisions, the Reds and Pirates being back of the Cardinals each by two games. . . The NL West’s Dodgers are the leading team with the biggest lead over a second place club, 10 games ahead of second place team, the Arizona Diamondbacks. Looking back to last year and end-of April 2013 results, the more surprising and disappointing situations belong to last year’s World Series winning club, the San Francisco Giants (72-64), the Seattle Mariners (68-88), the Baltimore Orioles (81-75) and the Colorado Rockies (71-86), all fourth and last place teams within their respective divisions. Worst record to date belongs to the Houston Astros, only 51 wins, the only club with more than 100 losses—106. . . COLORADO ROCKIES: THE Rockies are about to leave the MLB-2013 regular season below .500, in last place of the National League West, today tied as fourth worst in the National League along with the Philadelphia Phillies, each having won only 71 games, both fourth worst within both leagues along with the American League East’s last place team, the Toronto Blue Jays, also with but 71 wins. Even so, the Rockies have remained emblematic of a solid MLB team, for example, the Rockies have accumulated 155 home runs, seven of the team’s primary line-up contributing with double digit HR totals, LF Carlos Gonzalez leading with 26, SS Troy Tulowitzki with 24, C Wiln Rosario, 21, RF Michael Cuddyer, 20. And not to shrug off is that nine Rockies batters have 109 or more hits each for the season thus far, Cuddyer highest with 158, Tulowitzki second with 135, Rosario third in this category with 131. And three of the Rockies line-up hold batting averages above .300 for more than 350 at bats, Cuddyer in the lead at .334, Tulowitzki second at .316, Gonzalez third, .302. Rosario comes close---.292, and no other Rockies primary line-up batter has a batting average below .240. Commendable is second C Yorvit Torealba’s .239 batting average for but 176 at bats. Also, this line-up+ substitute players have produced 1,470 hits as of today, which includes 275 doubles from 11 batters and 37 triples from 10 batters. However, and here’s a rub, the number of runs yielded by this acceptable batting data has yielded but 690, a less than 50 percent success rate, which speaks to a lot of runners left on base as half innings closed, in NFL language weak red-zone efficiency, weak third down efficiency. Still, the accumulation of runs would have placed the Rockies in a better position today were the team’s number of hits per most games played able to offset the runs given away by the Rockies starter rotation, which had performed well enough in April, then sank from May through July, improved in August, sank again in September. Only two Rockies starting pitchers can claim double-digit wins today, LH Jorge De La Rosa with 16 wins, and RH Jhoulys Chacin with 14. RH Juan Nicasio follows these two with 8 wins. Still, the losses that these pitchers are tagged with add up to 24 of the Rockies 86 losses, so we have the Rockies three best starters purchasing a fourth of the team’s total number of losses. Atop this is that only two of the Rockies relievers have winning records, LH Rex Brothers (2-1) and LH Josh Outman, 3-0. So, and summarizing, the Rockies have owned a line-up delivering a large number of hits but too often has been unable to advance enough runners to home plate before a third out in order to offset the runs given up by the Rockies starting rotation and follow-up relievers. In spite of the team’s many above-the-margin players with high stats, which describes the team as deserving of being within the NL’s top half, the team’s low percentage of runs relative to number of hits and the pitching staff’s 4.3 ERA have combined to put the Rockies where they are finishing the season, bottom of the pack for a third consecutive season. END/ml

NFL: WEEK THREE, ABOUT-TO-BE; RAIDERS & THE BRONCOS // 2 BY GREATNESS--N.Y. YANKEE MARIANO RIVERA AND ROCKIES TODD HELTON RETIRING.

FOR MORE ANALYSIS, GO TO "MILE HIGH SPORTS RADIO," AM1510 or FM93.7, and to Denver’s best sports blogging team, milehighsports.com. SPORTS NOTEBOOK posts its columns Tuesday and Friday of each week. Ed. & Publ., Marvin Leibstone; Copy & Mng. Ed., Gail Kleiner. . . // . . . NFL---WEEK 3 of the NFL season will begin with eight teams being 0-2, “winless.” Meanwhile, eight other teams have won every one of their games, entering Week 3 at 2-0, with last night the Kansas City Chiefs at 3-0 for Week 4 entry, having defeated the Philadelphia Eagles, 26-16. Fifteen of the remaining 16 franchises are at 1-1, the Eagles looking at Week 4 as a 1-2 team. Given these Week 1 and Week 2/3 results, it’s difficult to determine whether the rest of Week 3 will produce startling or minor shifts in the rankings, or both, for instance, National Conference West’s leading team, the 2-0 Seattle Seahawks, will play against the American Conference South’s 0-2 Jacksonville Jaguars, while the AC East’s 2-0 New England Patriots will be facing the NC South’s 0-2 Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and the NC North’s 2-0 Chicago Bears will go against the AC North’s 0-2 Pittsburgh Steelers. These cited contests look like “Best against “Worst,” suggesting that “Best” will dominate easily if we are to determine end-of-game outcomes from the Week 1 and Week 2 win/loss stats. . . Yet from their Week 1 and 2 win/loss results alone, seven other Week 3 match-ups appear to be toss-ups, anyone’s guess as to which teams will succeed and which will fail, e.g., the NC West’s 1-1 San Francisco Giants versus the AC South’s 1-1 Indianapolis Colts, the 1-1 NC East Dallas Cowboys game vs. the 1-1 NC West St. Louis Rams, the AC West’s 1-1 San Diego Chargers against. the AC South’s 1-1 Tennessee Titans, and the AC East’s 1-1 Buffalo Bills challenging the AC East’s 1-1 New York Jets. So, too, will the NC North’s 1-1 Green Bay Packers meet the AC North’s 1-1 Cincinnati Bengals, while the NC North’s 0-2 Minnesota Vikings will face the AC North’s 0-2 Cleveland Browns, and the NC East’s 0-2 N.Y. Giants will meet the NC South’s 0-2 Carolina Panthers. These certainly more evenly balanced seem to be the mid-section of the NFL, involving 14 teams with the same rankings. . . But not as evenly matched for Week 3 are the AC West’s 2-0 Denver Broncos against the AC West’s 1-1 Oakland Raiders. And Thursday’s 2-0 Kansas City Chiefs 10 points ahead win over the NC East’s then 1-1 Philadelphia Eagles reflected the less evenly balanced contest. Similarly, the AC South’s 2-0 Houston Texans will go against the AC North’s 1-1 Baltimore Ravens, plus the NC South’s 2-0 New Orleans Saints will face the NC West’s 1-1 Arizona Cardinals on Sunday. In addition, the AC East’s 2-0 Miami Dolphins will be facing the NC South’s 1-1 Atlanta Falcons on Sunday; while the NC North’s 1-1 Detroit Lions will meet the NC East’s 0-2 Washington Redskins. Yes, that’s six unevenly matched games without any of them the makings of a humiliating blowout. . . . Summarizing, there are eight NFL franchises entering Week 3 as being perfect when it comes to number of games won, that is, they are, referencing baseball, batting .1000 by being 2-0, and three of these teams will be facing three opposing franchises that are at opposite ends of the win/loss pole, Zero, Zip, i.e., 0-0. In addition, seven NFL teams entering Week 3 at .500 will be facing the same number of 1-1/.500 teams, while five .1000 franchises will go against five .500 clubs and two 1-1/.500 franchises will battle two teams that are still 0-0. . . So, across the NFL’s 32 team spectrum, the lion’s share of Week 3’s games contain quite a lot of fairness, until we note that three of the perfect, i.e., three of the .1000 teams (Seahawks, Patriots and Bears) will go against three 0-0 teams. These .1000 teams were high-end winners throughout much of last season, implying that for them Week 3 is another chance to keep on winning almost hands behind their backs---this if we decide it to be so only from Week 1 and Week 2 stats, ignoring the many variables that can become game-changers. . . RAIDERS (1-1) CHALLENGING THE BRONCOS (2-0)---STATS favor the Broncos over the Raiders come Monday night, Week 3 of the NFL 2013 season. For example, Raiders Quarterback, Terrelle Pryor, has completed 64 percent of his Week 1 and Week 2 passes, and Broncos QB Peyton Manning has completed 67 percent of his Week 1 and Week 2 passes. Not much of a difference here until noted that Pryor’s passes have added up to 343 yards and but one touchdown, while Manning’s has reached 769 yards and gone for nine TD’s. And, out of the Raider’s 1-1 record exists a total of 36 points, while from the Broncos 2-0 record there’s a total of 90 points, seventh highest for Weeks 1 and 2 in NFL history since 1967, year of the first Super Bowl. The Raiders loss to the currently 1-1 Indianapolis Colts during Week 1 was only by four points, 21-17, and a Week 2 win versus the now 0-2 Jacksonville Jaguars was by 10 points, 19-9. The Broncos Week 1 win against the presently 1-1 Baltimore Ravens was by 22 points (49-27), and the Broncos defeat of the now 0-2 N.Y. Giants during Week 2 was by 18 points (41-23). Too, the Raiders total number of rushing yards would seem an advantage for the Raiders, 397 vs. the Broncos 174, except that the Raiders total allowed for two TD’s and the Broncos total also for two TD’s. And, when one reviews these Week 1 and Week 2 stats and also thinks of the Broncos receiver pack (Demaryius Thomas, Julian Thomas, Eric Decker and Wes Welker, all having received for TD’s in Weeks 1 and 2) and of Broncos running back, Knowshon Moreno (121 yards to his credit since September 5), surely easy is imagining the Raiders defense unable to prevent the Broncos from high double-digit scoring. Yet there’s a possible downside for the Broncos, a Broncos defense squad with players benched from injuries that has allowed opposing teams to accrue more than 20 points in each of two games played since September 5. . . MLB---WHEN high-above-the-margin athletes retire from their sport, it can be a crossroads, a street of gladness meeting up with an avenue of sorrow, gratitude that the athletes are leaving while still on top of their game + sadness that the game will soon be without their amazing contributions. Sooner than later, N.Y. Yankee Mariano Rivera and Colorado Rockies first baseman/super-hitter Todd Helton won’t be reappearing in major league contests. Of course, their legacies will maintain. Presently, what the two have in common is mutual respect, and that in the early 1990’s the Rockies had an opportunity to acquire Rivera, so the two might have been teammates. They also have in common the data that creates awe and causes up-and-coming ballplayers to want to emulate them. For example, Rivera’s 95 mph cut fastball, mostly unhittable, and that it has helped Rivera accumulate more than 650 saves, the most in MLB history, 90 of these being post-season saves. In 15 seasons, Rivera has been chosen as an All Star and over his total of 19 MLB seasons his ERA has been an incredible .2.22, his lowest post-season ERA an amazing 0.70. Too, Rivera has helped to close five World Series for the Yankees, and was chosen as WS-MVP in 1999, unusual for a closer. . . Like Rivera, Todd Helton is the owner of an attribute of bygone days, team loyalty his having by choice spent all of his 17 MLB years with the same ball club, the Colorado Rockies. Of equal reason for much respect that has moved in Helton’s direction is Helton’s .317 career batting average and his .415 On Base Percentage, and that across 17 MLB seasons he has hit 367 home runs and 586 doubles. That averages roughly into 22 HR’s per year and roughly 35 doubles per year, his best 49 HR’s in 2001. Too, Helton’s HR and extra-base hits have overshadowed his high-end skills as a first baseman, proven by Helton having won three Golden Glove awards. . . From my talk with Helton a few years ago, I learned much, that he is amazingly down to earth, has a fine sense of humor and won’t judge anyone too soon and without careful thought, and that he sees hitting a baseball as being as much of an art as a science, with emphasis on power and skill, especially re. “seeing” the baseball as it approaches the hitter, especially when the ball is near that five feet from home plate blind spot. He is also an advocate of deliberate opposite-field hitting as significant means for becoming a base runner and producing RBI’s, which few ball players can activate deliberately, they just hope for it. And, Helton “pays it forward,” shares what he knows with teammates whenever possible. So, missed as much for his ability to help the Rockies win games via his mix of power and skill will be Helton’s numerous positive character attributes. The Rockies are in a hole now, National League West last place; the team will be experiencing a big hole internally with Helton gone from the line-up next Spring. END/ml

NFL: WEEK 2 RESULTS; BRONCOS DEFEAT OF THE GIANTS // MLB: END-OF-SEASON WINNERS.

FOR MORE ANALYSIS, GO TO "MILE HIGH SPORTS RADIO," AM1510 or FM93.7, and to Denver’s best sports blogging team, milehighsports.com. SPORTS NOTEBOOK posts its columns Tuesday and Friday of each week. Ed. & Publ., Marvin Leibstone; Copy & Mng. Ed., Gail Kleiner. . . // . . .NFL---NFL-Week 2’s 10 games that competed last year’s high-end franchises resulted in score-differentials that were quite close, except for the American Conference West’s Denver Broncos 41-23 trouncing of the National Conference East’s New York Giants, the NC West’s Seattle Seahawks 29-3 win versus the NC West’s San Francisco 49ers, and the NC North’s Green Bay Packers 38-20 victory over the NC East’s Washington Redskins. As examples of the unexpected tight scoring that dominated Week Two, on Sunday the AC North’s Baltimore Ravens (last season’s Super Bowl winner) defeated the AC North’s Cleveland Browns by just eight points, 14-6, and last year’s NC South'S upper stratosphere Atlanta Falcons defeated the NC West’s St. Louis Rams similarly, 31-24, while the AC West’s Houston Texans beat the Tennessee Titans by only six, 30-24; and, on Thursday last, the AC East’s often leading team, the New England Patriots, they defeated the N.Y. Jets barely, 13-10... Although too early in the season to tell if top-of-the-hill NFL teams have declined slightly in skills and power, or if the lesser franchises have improved greatly, the tight score differentials could add to a dimension that is always reinforcing as well as interesting and exciting for fans as well as players, that of NFL teams revising strategies and tactics as the season progresses in order to be winning before a third quarter by more than, say, in the least a TD and a field goal... Overall, eight of the NFL’s 32 teams are currently 2-0, each a franchise that finished above the margin last season, the AC West and AC East the only divisions containing two of the 2-0’s respectively, the AC’s Broncos and Kansas City Chiefs, and the AC East’s N.E. Patriots and Miami Dolphins. Of the eight franchises that are 0-2, the more negative diminished expectation could be that of the Redskins QB RGIII not recovering from last season’s injury as well as hoped. . . // . . . BRONCOS & GIANTS---Of Week Two’s widest point spreads from games played, the Broncos win over the Giants was hyped as Manning III because of the Peyton/Eli quarterback match-up, but NFL analysts cared little for that, they were watching to see if Broncos QB Peyton Manning’s offense could purchase from tough opposition enough successful pass-to-receiver and rush yardage for first downs leading toward TD opportunities, continuation of which in remaining regular season games could take the Broncos to next February’s Super Bowl. And, surely on the analyst’s watch-agenda was this question, “Can the Broncos defense keep from returning those TD-points gained by Peyton Manning’s offense, to a strong opposing offense?” Make no mistake, the Giants were that tough offense, attaining more first downs than the Broncos achieved, 28 over 23, and a greater total number of passing yards achieved, 362 over the Broncos 307. And, the Giants average gain in yards per play, 5.4, was just about equal to that of the Broncos 5.8. The Giants offense was extremely weak in rushing yards, however, only 23 were obtained vs. the Broncos 109, and the Giants offense was weak with regard to third down efficiency, 1-11 against the Broncos 8-15. Too, while QB Eli Manning’s 28 pass completions were close to brother Peyton’s 30 completions, Eli’s were of 49 attempts, Peyton’s of 43, those six failed Eli attempts a factor in fewer red-zone landings. The Giants red-zone efficiency, that is, exploitation of end-zone proximity for the TD, was only half that of the Broncos. A point being made here is that the Denver Broncos had the Giants pinned down more than enough from second quarter until endgame, while the Broncos offense outplayed the Giants defense, converting 72 plays into five TD’s and two field goals. . . // . . . MLB---Given the win/loss ratios experienced by second place division teams in August and September, there’s likelihood of only one of the six easing into first place. That’s the National League Central’s St. Louis Cardinals at the heels of first place team, the Pittsburgh Pirates, each with 87 wins, but with a possible NC Central spoiler of this being third place club, the Cincinnati Reds, only two games back of the Pirates. Among the five other MLB divisions, the NL West is led by the Los Angeles Dodgers, nine games up, and the NL East by the Atlanta Braves by 10. At the top of the American League West is the Oakland Athletics by seven, and leading the AL Central are the Detroit Tigers, by five, and the AL East by the Boston Red Sox, nine up. Yet all first and second place teams have comprised a spectrum of total won games to date that is close, on average around 83 wins, the least number to date belonging to the NL West’s second place team, the Arizona Diamondbacks, 76 wins, and the NL East’s second place Washington Nationals, 79, the most being those of the AL East’s Red Sox, 92, next in most wins being the NL East’s Atlanta Braves, 89. These placements in the current week’s standings indicate, then, that all games that most of these first and second place teams could be playing during the year’s post-season will be close, the winners anyone’s guess. What could be better than MLB playoff “unpredictably” and no evidence at all as to which teams will make the World Series until those playoffs near expiration? END/ml

NFL: WEEK ONE & UP AHEAD, WEEK TWO; BRONCOS VS. GIANTS, MANNING & MANNING // MLB: SEPTEMBER'S RIVALS.

For more analysis, go to Mile High Sports Radio AM1510 or FM93.7, and to Denver’s best sports blogging team, milehighsports.com. SPORTS NOTEBOOK posts its columns Tuesday and Friday of each week. Ed. & Publ., Marvin Leibstone; Copy & Mng. Ed., Gail Kleiner. . . //. . . NFL---IT’s already a pack of surprises, though too early in the 2013 NFL regular season for any team to be singing the blues. For instance, the entire NFL-American Conference North is 0-1 (Ugh!), within it the 2012/13 Super Bowl winning team, the Baltimore Ravens, losing embarrassingly to the AC West’s Denver Broncos, 49-27. Yet the AC West’s Kansas City Chief’s 28-2 trouncing of the AC South’s Jacksonville Jaguars was the only other Week One huge victory-differential regarding points, continuation of which suggests a highly competitive season within both the AC and the National Conference, another indication of this being that not many football experts expected that Week One would have the AC West’s Oakland Raiders losing to the AC South’s Indianapolis Colts by only four points, 21-17. Nor had analysts shouted that during Week One the NC South’s Carolina Panthers would hold the Seattle Seahawks to 12 points vs. their seven, or on Monday night that the AC West’s San Diego Chargers would lose to the AC South’s Houston Texans by only three points, 31-28, or that the AC East’s Buffalo Bills would lose on Sunday to the AC East’s New England Patriots by just two points, 23-21. Among last season’s playoff-berthed franchises thought to start the new season explosively on the win side, the NC South’s Atlanta Falcons were kneed during Week One by the NC South’s New Orleans Saints, 23-17. . . Grade school math tells us that the aftermath of NFL Week One will always have 16 of the 32 NFL teams at .1000, thus with perfect post-entry week ratings, while the remaining 16 will be absolute losers, their start-of-season averages zero, zip, NADA! Of course, for each of the 32 NFL teams this will change or maintain starting with Week Two. Right now, the Patriots are, because of Sunday’s win over the Bills and Thursday night’s 13-10 win over the AC East’s New York Jets, they are leading the NFL, 2-0. That aside, the informed guesses are that the more contentious and evenly matched Week Two games will be the Broncos vs. the N.Y. Giants, the NC East’s Washington Redskins vs. the AC North’s Green Bay Packers, and the Seahawks against the NC West’s San Francisco 49ers. . . // . . . BRONCOS & GIANTS---FORGET that there could be a fiery sibling rivalry when the Broncos and Giants face off on Sunday, with opposing quarterbacks/brothers Peyton Manning and Eli Manning becoming an NFL version of a last man standing duel, of a sort of Cain and Abel thing prevailing over all else during all 60 minutes of play. Think more of the brothers maintaining a family status-quo for reasons other than rivalry, older brother Peyton showing that he’s still setting an example of sharpened-to-the-hilt athletic prowess and of enviable sportsmanship not only for younger brother, Eli, but because that is what he does no matter which team he is facing during any Sunday, with Eli showing not only his older brother but other QB’s that he’s paid attention, has been and still is among the more worthy of QB’s. We’re talking great quarterback Archie Manning’s offspring here, they’ve been taught to respect the NFL game and especially each other, to set emotional issues aside and play to win fairly. The skills demonstrated on Sunday by the Mannings will be about these levels of respect, which will result in each other’s devotion to QB leadership and field-performance, to playbook execution and any necessary improvisations. And, neither brother has ever thought that an NFL win can evolve only from what a QB does or fails to do. So, to have a sense of what may happen during the Broncos vs. Giants game on Sunday, it’s probably best to look at the entire Chessboard, at all the pieces that will be at play, not only at opposing QB’s. Surely, the Broncos QB protection + WR and RB timely escapes for successful receptions + rushes forward had much to do with Peyton Manning’s seven TD passes during Week One’s Broncos game vs. the Baltimore Ravens, and certainly the Broncos defense performance in the second half against the Ravens stands out as a formidable threat to the Giants offense, but if the Broncos defense vs. the Giants is what it was in the first half against the Ravens and if the Broncos offense is unable to whip up the timeliness for pass completions that failed to exist in that first half vs. the Ravens, well, that’s when the Giants could pull ahead easily. To beat the Giants comfortably, Denver will have to command and control the game from kick-off, with Peyton Manning and his selected receivers positioned safely for the pass or hand-off, which suggests that Giants QB Eli Manning will hope for a Giants defense that excels at the pass rush and can disorient or sack the Broncos QB before Denver can drive ahead via multiple first downs and then end zone opportunity. And, the Giants head coach and QB will hope for zero-defects and speedy pass protection when Eli Manning is in the pocket; and, if that cannot always be, when Denver has the football the Giants leadership will hope that the Giants backs could deploy like Superman and Batman to neutralize Denver WR’s Eric Decker, Julian Thomas and DeMaryius Thomas, who were among Peyton Manning’s partners for those seven anti-Ravens TD throws. This latter effort is where the Giants will have to excel, in that they have the potential to interfere with the Broncos receivers but haven’t a set of equally productive receivers. But---our thinking is that the trade-offs in strengths and vulnerabilities of the two teams could produce a low-scoring game played conservatively, this “by default,” with both sides looking for those few and narrow windows of opportunity that such challenges usually include . . . // . . . MLB---SEPTEMBER is a time during any MLB regular season when some of baseball’s ironies pop up and mystify, for example, teams doing poorly within a division throughout the season to date, they could suddenly be faring a lot better, usually evident among franchises moving into third from fourth positions within their respective divisions. Take the New York Yankees, now in third place after a long stay at fourth within the American League East. The Yankees are nine games back of the AL East’s number one team, the Boston Red Sox, but they are just one back of second place club, the Tampa Bay Rays, with enough games ahead that could position them into second place soon and continue as a rival for the AL East championship and for a go at the playoff’s league championship and then the World Series, all this after being a fourth place club throughout most of the MLB season. Meanwhile, second place clubs, which have held that position throughout most of the 2013 MLB season, they have fewer games in the win column than even when the Yankees were in fourth place---the NL West’s Arizona Diamondbacks, 73 wins as of today and 12 behind leading team, the Los Angeles Dodgers, and the Washington Nationals, 77, 11 games back of the NL East’s leading club, the Atlanta Braves. Of course, achievement of playoff berths for these clubs will be “a Leveler,” and whether having completed a season in third or second place inside a division won’t mean much with regard to post-season status. Other third and fourth place clubs that could still move up and attain end-of-season dignity as playoff contenders or almost contenders are the NL East’s Baltimore Orioles, now two games back of the Yankees, and the NL Central’s third place club, the Cincinnati Reds, just three games behind leading team, the Pittsburgh Pirates, while being two back of second place club, the St. Louis Cardinals, and AL Central’s Kansas City Royals, only one game behind second place club, the Cleveland Indians. Therefore, and as to teams that will be facing the already playoff-situated Atlanta Braves, Boston Red Sox, L.A. Dodgers, the Pirates and Cardinals, the Oakland Athletics and the Detroit Tigers, that’s still anyone’s guess. END/ml

U.S OPEN & TENNIS; NFL & NEW-SEASON CHARACTERISTICS; MLB: RIGGED FOR LOSSES

For more analysis, go to Mile High Sports Radio AM1510 or FM93.7, and to Denver’s best sports blogging team, milehighsports.com. SPORTS NOTEBOOK posts its columns Tuesday and Friday of each week. Ed. & Publ., Marvin Leibstone; Copy & Mng. Ed., Gail Kleiner. . . /// . . . U.S. OPEN (Tennis) --- WATCHING Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic, Roger Federer, Andy Murray, Serena Williams and Victoria Azarenka work the courts throughout a tennis year, and especially at Grand Slam events, reminds that tennis and the martial arts have a common characteristic. Both sports are gladiator-against-gladiator, one-versus-one until “last player standing (metaphorically).” And while in both sports the hit is always an attempted game-changer, in tennis each hit lands with a result that adds or subtracts for the perpetrator. In the martial arts, you can swing and miss now and then and it need not mean anything. There are no reprieves in tennis, “every swing counts.” In this context, except for the blood, broken jaws, flattened noses and black eyes, tennis can be as brutal as, say, a 15 round Boxing match. So, with players like the aforementioned, each with comparable skills, winning at tennis demands, like boxing, “high octane fusion” of four athletic attributes: Raw Power, Endurance + Force-Of-Will, Speed, and Cunning Use Of Familiar Tactics & Skills. Lose an edge within but one of these attributes and you can be a goner, like Federer losing early during the recent U.S. Open due largely to some loss of raw power and speed, and Azarenka unable to outwit and penetrate Williams’ savvy employment of standard defense skills. And, Nadal defeated Djokovic yesterday at the U.S. Open with advantages in Power evolving from raw physical strength, from amazing Force-Of-Will, Speed and what seemed to be automatic leaps into the appropriate stances for offense and defense hits, no thinking required, often like a perfect machine, while Djokovic’s unusually long physical stretch, his not quite equal power factor and his defense strategy just couldn’t prevail. Outcomes: Serena Williams became the women’s winner at the 2013 U.S. Open, and Nadal the men’s winner, both with evidence that for some time tennis will continue to be a Power/Endurance/Force-Of-Will/Speed and Surprise-execution of tactics game, this latter the equivalent of boxing’s sudden “No-see-um” Kayos after lots of hits, with fewer, if any close-to-the-net volleys, this as if boxers engaging in fewer body-to-body clinches, fewer short hooks, fewer uppercuts. . . /// . . . NFL: WHEN compared with seasons of other team sports, e.g., professional baseball, basketball, soccer and hockey, the NFL season is quite short, and so not all aspects to the NFL game can be seen readily, in that there is a lot to watch in a short period of time---just 16 weeks. More precisely, that’s 16 games each for the NFL’s 32 teams. It’s impossible to watch all of the NFL season unless you’re in a hovering Goodyear balloon high in the sky every Sunday, Monday and Thursday until the end of the year and then in the post-season, equipped with multiple TV connects and you have several brains and multiple eyes. Seeing more during the 16 week season is, of course, aided by knowing what to look for in the games that you can watch, and here’s what a lot of analysts have been talking about in this regard: Ground vs. air, i.e., the game being dominated possibly more by the rush, than by quarterbacks quickly seeing receivers free and deep for the successful pass. Some analysts have argued that fans will see more of the running game because of some success viewed last season from employment of a tactic called “the read-option,” an offense method chosen by a QB based on rushing opportunities built immediately by an opposing defense when that defense has been forced into mistakes allowing openings for “the rush,” a tactic that the QB might choose to do by himself. Maybe this tactic should be called, “read-College,” for it’s been a mainstay in college football, largely because only a few college QB’s have that long throw ability for anything other. Our thinking is that whether air or ground, such will depend on a QB’s particular advantages re. going-down-the-field skills, e.g., Denver Broncos QB Peyton Manning and N.E. Patriots QB, Tom Brady, haven’t today the speed or the flexibility for the read-option that newcomer QB’s RGIII (Washington Redskins), Andrew Luck (Indianapolis Colts), Colin Kaepernick (S.F. 49ers) and Russell Wilson (Seattle Seahawks) have for it; but no matter, Manning and Brady now win games primarily via the long pass or via successive first downs purchased by the short throw, then comes that end-zone spillover for the TD. So, read-option employment will likely be seen from the more versatile QB or from the QB who can move as speedily and as cannily as the best among running backs, not necessarily from the best passer in a division. (Here’s where former Broncos, then Jets QB, Tim Tebow, had some talent, if only he had the QB savvy for when exactly NOT to pull it off by himself). On Sunday, the Philadelphia Eagles defense kept RG-III from successful rush execution ffom sheer phsycial pressure mostly, and Eagles QB the older Michael Vick amassed needed win points by using a classic mix of run and pass, no reliance on constant repeats of any aspect of the read-option. In sum, the read-option probably won’t be a major tactic used repeatedly by each of the NFL’s 32 franchises. More than likely, read-option endurance will be curtailed by defense coordinators coming up with the tactics to subvert, bound to happen sooner than later, and when it does the read-option will have the infrequent appearance in pro-football that the Hail Mary maneuver now has . . . Too, “the new decorated-with- applause + noise heroes” in the NFL will be former “silent or sometimes flash-in-the-pan heroes,” those linebackers that can not only sack but also disorient a QB before the QB can execute sharply. Here, the sack won’t be the only goal for these LB’s, instead “disorientation” could be a primary goal because it’s got a better chance of happening, and this will include efforts to force a QB into selection of his worst rather than best option, for instance, throwing to the deep or close-in receiver or nearby back least likely to have a chance of significant if any reception, better yet forcing the QB to try running with the ball and be pushed backward into loss of yardage. Moreover, look to some more “platooning,” i.e., use of on-the-spot personnel depth, thus coaches deciding to revamp immediately for specific offense and defense situations, which means number two QB’s and other secondary players given more time afield. / / / . . . MLB: NINE of the 30 MLB franchises are now close to or above having won half of their scheduled 162 ballgames, the AL East’s Boston Red Sox ahead with 87 wins, the NL East’s Atlanta Braves close behind with 86, then the NL West’s Los Angeles Dodgers, NL Central’s St. Louis Cardinals and AL West’s Oakland Athletics tied at 83, next the NL Central’s Pittsburgh Pirates, Cincinnati Reds and AL Central’s Detroit Tigers with 82, and the AL West’s Texas Rangers having 81. This means that each of the nine clubs has still lost 56 and as many as 62 games, a sure indication of how baseball is rigged against “constant winning.” Yet of the aforementioned nine teams, six are leading their respective divisions, two are second place clubs (the Pirates and the Rangers) and the remaining third team (the Reds) has the same number of wins as second place club, the Pirates, but an additional loss keeping it at third place. Fuel to the fire here is that some MLB clubs have already lost almost half or as many or more than half of their scheduled games, among these, the Houston Astros (96 losses), the Miami Marlins (89 losses), the Chicago White Sox (85) and the Chicago Cubs (82), with last year’s World Series winner, the S.F. Giants, close with 79 losses. Add the Seattle Mariners coming near with 78 losses, and the Toronto Blue Jays, 76 losses. That’s eight MLB clubs far beneath the margin, another sign that the majors constitute a game incredibly hard for production of a winning season, signaling that there are many variables favoring “the loss” that are glued to that category politely labeled, “Unintended Consequences.” Frustrating for so many MLB execs and managers is that the causes of why a team wins more than half of scheduled games is usually evident, but why the numerous losses? That’s usually of the hard to find variables, and when found they are hard to decode. END/ml

NFL: GAME ONE, WEEK ONE---BRONCOS VS. RAVENS // MLB: NL WEST.

For more analysis, go to Mile High Sports Radio AM1510 or FM93.7, and to Denver’s best sports blogging team, milehighsports.com. SPORTS NOTEBOOK posts its columns Tuesday and Friday of each week. Ed. & Publ., Marvin Leibstone; Copy & Mng. Ed., Gail Kleiner. . . // NFL: DURING the NFL 2012 playoffs, the Baltimore Ravens began a Super Bowl journey by defeating the Denver Broncos in double-overtime, which ended the Broncos chances for SB eminence. Yesterday, NFL-2013 kicked in with a Ravens/Broncos match that did a lot more than produce a turnabout against the Ravens from a Broncos last minute game-saving play similar to that which unraveled the Denver team last season. Last night, the Ravens went down steadily starting in the game’s second quarter, this from the Broncos relentless offense and defense dominance, nearly all of it classic football, a conservative game actually, a lot of standard plays on both sides of the ball although with what could be called minimalism with respect to rushing aspects, Denver getting away with the process a lot more often than the Baltimore team . . . Highlights address the successful Denver war-footing, an overarching result being the 49 points lost by the Ravens to the Broncos, the most points lost by the Ravens to any football team in the team’s history. It thundered from seven touchdown passes thrown by Denver quarterback, Peyton Manning, tying an NFL record that appeared last in 1969, achieved by Minnesota Viking QB, Joe Knapp, coincidentally against the Ravens predecessor team, the Baltimore Colts. Manning’s achievement wasn’t solo, of course, the seven successful TD passes included timely receptions by Broncos tight end Julius Thomas and wide receivers Demaryius Thomas, Wes Welker and Andre Caldwell, and empowered by outstanding protection of Manning during the pass rush. Manning completed 27 of 42 passes for 462 yards, nearly 10 yards per pass play. Overshadowed by this is the contribution from rushes that helped to enable Denver’s 24 first downs within a much shorter ball possession time held by Denver---26 minutes vs. Baltimore’s 33 minutes, and which positioned Manning and his receivers for the accrued TD’s. Denver RB’s Monte Ball, Knowshon Moreno and Ronnie Hillman rushed for a total of 67 yards from 21 attempts. . . Yet the Ravens weren’t marshmallows. The Ravens were on top of the Broncos for half of the game if points ahead are the criteria for saying so. Like the Broncos, they achieved 24 first downs and they led at the half, 17-14, and they were 7-0 at the end of the first Q. Ravens QB Flacco completed 34 of 62 passes for 362 yards, no usual Manning-like performance but credible---he hadn’t the QB/WR connectivity patterns that Denver’s Manning had, though only up to a point, in that WR Eric Decker had dropped passes and Wes Welker had lost some. Noteworthy is that the Broncos reflected necessary depth for any team aspiring toward a better than, say, 9/7 end-of-season finish. Gone from the day’s roster were Broncos LB Von Miller, CB Champ Bailey and other preferred starters, their surrogates credible from start to completion of the game, to wit: Ravens QB Flacco being sacked four times for a loss of 27 yards, and two of his passes intercepted . . . Unless it’s to be during the 2013 playoffs, the Ravens and Broncos won’t be facing each other again this year, but each will be facing tough challenges before reaching respective Bye weeks, e.g., Ravens against the Houston Texans on September 22, and the Ravens vs. the Packers on October 13. The Broncos will face the N.Y. Giants on September 15, the Indianapolis Colts on October 20, the Washington Redskins, October 27. . . /// MLB: THE NATIONAL LEAGUE WEST stands out as one of Major League Baseball’s six divisions this year for several reasons. For example, the NL West is led by the L.A. Dodgers, a club that at the All Star break was among some of the NL’s lowest ranking teams. That sudden and steep rising up hasn’t occurred in the five other MLB divisions. Also, and except for the NL East’s Atlanta Braves 14-game lead over second place team, the Washington Nationals, the Dodgers also have an unusually large lead, 12 games over the NL West’s second place club, the Arizona Diamondbacks. Within the remaining four divisions, the first place clubs are no more than six games ahead of second place clubs. Too, the NL West’s second place club, the Diamondbacks, has the lowest number of wins among all other MLB second place clubs---70. Moreover, the NL West’s last place franchise was last year’s World Series winner, the San Francisco Giants. And, the S.F. Giants have the best record among the NL’s division last place teams, and second best among all last place teams within the American League, as well. In addition, the NL West’s differences in number of wins among its five teams is slightest within the NL---343 wins to date, and second lowest in the AL behind the AL West’s 333 wins, a difference being that the wins are spread out more closely within the NL West, therefore more justly. The most division wins achieved belong to the AL East, 375 as of today, but the disparity within the AL East is vast, leading club Boston Red Sox with 85 wins, the Toronto Blue Jays with 64. This information advises that the NL West is the MLB division that is more fair competitively, unlike the NL East, where the last place team, the Miami Marlins, has but 46 wins compared with the first place Braves having 80 wins, or the AL West’s Oakland Athletics in first place with 80 wins and the Houston Astros in last place with only 46 wins. But in the majors, divisions do not compete against one another as a totality for anything, so this information is only meaningful to baseball watchers who care about full division vs. full division stats. Still, of some importance for heightened competition and yet greater fairness is the lack of opportunity for clubs in divisions where the disparity between first and last is very wide, such as that within which the Marlins, the Astros, the Chicago Cubs and this year’s Chicago White Sox must compete. END/ml

NFL's $765 Million For Concussion Victims; NFL 2013 Season, Week One// MLB Standings; Colorado Rockies // Brief Notes.

For more analysis, go to Mile High Sports Radio AM1510 or FM93.7, and to Denver’s best sports blogging team, milehighsports.com. SPORTS NOTEBOOK posts its columns Tuesday and Friday of each week. Ed. & Publ., Marvin Leibstone; Copy & Mng. Ed., Gail Kleiner). . . //-- NFL---YES, the NFL providing $765 million dollars to around 4,500 former athletes suffering from brain damage due to concussions taken afield “it’s a lot of money.” The breakout per capita is around $170,000, with no more than $5.0 million allotted for any player suffering from the more debilitating game-driven brain damage issue, for instance, advanced Alzheimer’s. No-one should have a problem with the total expenditure or the $5.0 million cap, except that the total expenditure is about the past, very little about “the future.” Only $10 million of the $765 million is for research into ways to reduce all likelihood of NFL players experiencing serious concussion injuries, and undetermined still is how much of that $10 million will be for R&D toward advanced gear technologies, for new ways of doctors treating injuries, and for new ways that the game can be played without such injuries occurring, this without the game losing it’s cleverness, intensity and viewer-attraction. Given what it has taken for development of a single major medical prevention product for national consumption, e.g., the MRI, the $10 million for R&D isn’t going to buy enough to keep another 4,500 players from the terror of brain damage. There are 32 NFL teams with rosters of 40-45 each for active participation afield, which is around 1,340 players for one16-game NFL regular season, four year’s of which is a number hardly much greater than the number of athletes who are already concussion victims. That’s a huge hurricane of hurt. A point being made here is that efforts to “terminate” that which could cause another round of 4,500 brain damaged professional football players ought to be in play, and probably needed for that is an amount equal to the $765 million allocated for existing victims. It may not seem that the NFL can afford that, but it can . . . /// . . . NFL SEASON, 2013: IF we’re talking spread of national interest, TV audience growth and more completely filled stadiums, then professional football in the U.S. “rules.” It has been equal with and then ahead of professional baseball for several seasons now, winning the label, “National Pastime,” catching up to soccer and Formula One motor racing as a global sport drawing in the larger number of spectators and the most money annually. NFL 2013 is likely to continue the trend, and it kicks in this week, 16 weeks of 32 teams each wanting one thing above all else, a shot at next February’s Super Bowl, though more than half of the 32 know that this goal is more dream than reality. By game 12, nearly half of the 32 will be settling for an 8/8 finish, and around half of those will see that .500 finish as more dream than reality. Thus, it’s all there: joy, heartbreak, reason to hope and “dig in,” reason to find where honor and dignity still reside within the less than .500 finish. So, what’s to know now so that this Thursday and the weekend are less than a blur, colorful though such may be. Some background: What is today’s NFL with effective record keeping goes back 93 years, to 1920, then mostly an east coast game, the better teams from the larger industrial towns, e.g., Akron, Ohio, the Super Bowl coming into existence several decades years later, 1967, first to claim it Green Bay after defeating Kansas City. Last year, the Baltimore Ravens won the Super Bowl and they will be challenged on Thursday by the Denver Broncos. The Broncos may have been the 2012 season’s Super Bowl winner had the Ravens not beaten the Broncos in double overtime with a spontaneous last minute throw more out of desperation and some wildness than a QB offering up something strategic and cool. It wasn’t a play, instead a response to a play gone wrong. Thursday night competes Denver quarterback, Peyton Manning, against Ravens QB, Joe Flacco. Manning is of a mindset that ignores desire for vengeance; he’s more determined to push point-leveraging to where even the best of his team’s defense tactics won’t be needed to help sustain a long lead accrued. Reading and then neutralizing an opposing defense squad is what Manning will be about on Thursday. Whether that defense is called the Ravens, Raiders or Rams will be of less consequence to him than driving an offense for successive first downs and then the low risk rush or throw for the TD or field goal. Ravens QB Flacco could be thinking differently, however; he wouldn’t want to believe, or have anyone else believe, that his role in last year’s Ravens win over the Broncos was a fluke. Meanwhile, other than Thursday night’s Broncos/Ravens match, Week One NFL games including teams that comprised last year’s playoffs will seem like upstairs/downstairs battles, the most against the least, e.g., on Sunday the New England Patriots against the Buffalo Bills, the Atlanta Falcons versus the New Orleans Saints, the Seattle Seahawks vs. the Carolina Panthers, the Indianapolis Colts vs. the Oakland Raiders. Make no mistake, Week One’s more intense drama and tight competition will be that of Thursday’s game. . . /// . . . MLB--- IN the National League, of the three division leading clubs only the NL Central’s Pittsburgh Pirates have to worry about a fast shove back to second place, being one game ahead of the 79-58 St. Louis Cardinals. Impressive within the NL is that the three division leading clubs have amassed more than 80 wins to date, the NL East’s Atlanta Braves ahead with 84 wins, which is more than accrued by any American League club. The NL West’s L.A. Dodgers are second within the NL to the Braves, with 82 wins, 12 wins ahead of second place team, the Arizona Diamondbacks. The Braves have the best lead above second place, 15 wins ahead of the Washington Nationals. The NL Central’s Cincinnati Reds are the only third place team in the NL that could obtain a playoff slot without pairs of September miracles, being only three games behind first place team, the Pirates. . . Within the AL, the Oakland Athletics and the Texas Rangers are tied at first place today, both 15 games ahead of second place club, the L.A. Angels. Both the Athletics and the Rangers have 79 wins, while the AL Central’s first place club, the Detroit Tigers, have 81 wins, five above second place team, the Cleveland Indians. The AL East is still led by the 82-57 Boston Red Sox, five wins ahead of the Tampa Bay Rays. The best third place performance within the AL belongs to the AL East’s Baltimore Orioles, seven wins behind the Red Sox. . . If the above-cited data holds up, if the growth-rate of wins maintains, then as the regular 2012 season comes to a close we’ll see the Atlanta Braves atop the NL and the Red Sox leading the AL. BUT, and as always, playoff competition will change the order of things and deliver some surprising outcomes . . . /// . . . COLORADO ROCKIES---SERIOUS baseball fans want to see good baseball, and serious players want to provide good baseball. Sure, fans and players are more than curious about team standings and individual player stats, it’s great if one’s favorite baseball team can double-down, lead a division, win a pennant race, go to the World Series, win the WS, and we like to marvel at individual feats, at double-digit home runs, at most hits for a season, at low ERA’s. That so many fans of art, theater, literature, science, politics and other endeavors deride sports fans/game analysts/sportswriters/athletes for appreciating the amazing that happens on baseball fields and at football and soccer arenas, at track meets and at basketball courts seems ridiculous, in that appreciation of sports is no different than, say, liking a Picasso painting, a Broadway musical or a movie based on a Jane Austen novel. It’s about power of appreciation, one of the major plusses separating us humans from snakes and scorpions. Okay, that pet-peeve digression put aside, many “appreciating” baseball fans, and lots of MLB players, want above all else to be inside that one day at the stadium, that one game, to see multiple extra-base hits, RBI’s, home runs, stolen positions, catches not even an Olympic gymnast could leap or stretch to make, and it’s been that way ironically at games involving the now National League West third place club, the 65-74/.468 Colorado Rockies. We can be disappointed, even top-of-the-mark angry, that the Rockies haven’t the numbers for easy playoff candidacy, yet that disappointment, the anger, can dissolve quickly when after appearing to be asleep during a few games the Rockies suddenly bounce, e.g., against the Los Angeles Dodgers on Monday night, Josh Rutledge reaching first base safely, followed by D.J. LeMahieu offering a double, sending Rutledge to third, then Wilin Rosario gets on base and Rutledge and LeMahieu get to go home before the inning is over, Rockies ahead of the Dodgers, 3-1. Or, last Friday against the Cincinnati Reds, Todd Helton proving that at 40 years of age he’s still the face of the franchise---two home runs, six RBI’s, reaching 2,500 hits and still going. If the body slows a bit at 40, the eyes can be the same. I asked Todd Helton a few years ago what he believed was the best attribute for successful at-bats; he answered, “The eyes, seeing the ball,” and he still sees it large, maybe inside that five feet of distance before reaching the plate when a ball travelling over 85 mph is considered any hitter’s blind spot. Or, just when one thinks that Wiln Rosario and Michael Cuddyer won’t be seeing multiple hits in a single game or extend a hitting streak as they had earlier in the season, the two see bat/ball connectivity again and put numbers on the board. There’s Rockies heat still for a decent season finish, a .500 or higher closeout, which means the Rockies need to blast away against the L.A. Dodgers in five more September games and cause trouble for the Arizona Diamondbacks in six September outings. Then there‘s putting up a solid showing this month versus the Boston Red Sox and the St. Louis Cardinals. Our take here is that the Rockies mirror the Dodgers, in that they can be a come from behind club time and again. The Dodgers finished poorly in 2012, and they started off poorly this year. They weren’t hot and winning more than losing until after the 2013 All Star game. Now of 82 wins and 55 losses, the Dodgers were 47/47 just before the All Star break. The Rockies have 23 more games to play before the 2013 regular season ends. If they can continue to win four of seven games played, or adopt the Dodger post-All Star game win/loss percentages, the Rockies can claim .500+ status, MLB’s version of a box for the better also-ran clubs. . . . /// . . . BRIEF NOTES---At the U.S. Open, Roger Federer is gone, Venus Williams is gone, sister Serena is still up . . . RUSH, it’s the title of a new film directed by Ron Howard and to appear at theaters soon. It’s about FORMULA ONE motor racing, with F1 footage that compares with that in classic films Grand Prix and Le Mans. The FORMULA ONE-USA event will be this November, at Austin Texas, touted as top sirloin steak compared with NASCAR, the hamburger . . . A terrific and current HBO documentary is titled GLICKMAN, about Marty Glickman, among the best radio/TV sports announcers in U.S. sports history, who was also a college football star and an Olympic runner on the same team as Jesse Owens at the 1936 Munich-held Olympics that humiliated Hitler and Hitler’s notion of there being a super race (There’s great footage of that race and of classic football and basketball games that Marty Glickman covered.). END/ml.