NFL: WEEK 5 & MUCH ALIVE; BRONCOS DEFEAT OF THE EAGLES // MLB: POST-SEASON; COLORADO ROCKIES & 2014

sports-notebook.blogspot.com . . . // . . . 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---WELL, they shut down the U.S. government and the NFL is still standing. Must be that professional football dominates. After all, who would have had the courage to put a halt to the five NFL teams with perfect records thus far for the 2013 NFL season? These phenoms, four wins, zero losses (4-0) each, are the American Conference West’s Denver Broncos and Kansas City Chiefs, the AC East’s New England Patriots, the National Conference West’s Seattle Seahawks and the NC South’s New Orleans Saints. Together, these teams put more than 150 points on the board Thursday, Sunday and Monday (Week Four), the Broncos ahead with 52 pulled from the NC East’s now 1-3 Philadelphia Eagles, the Saints next with 38 taken from the now 3-1 Miami Dolphins. It is definitely a strong NFL season moving into Week 5, with today only four NFL teams at the opposite end of the win/loss spectrum, 0-4---the AC North’s Pittsburgh Steelers, AC South’s Jacksonville Jaguars, AC East’s New York Giants and NC South’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers, while nine teams are at 2-2, thus at the margin of playoff possibility, .500, and five teams are at 1-3---the AC West’s Oakland Raiders, NC West’s St. Louis Rams, the NC East’s Eagles, NC North’s Minnesota Vikings and the NC South’s Atlanta Falcons. Notable is that of the nine 2-2/.500 teams, two are leading their divisions, the AC North’s Baltimore Ravens and the NC East’s Dallas Cowboys. When adding the five teams that are at 3-1 and thus .750, the AC South’s Indianapolis Colts and Tennessee Titans, NC North’s Detroit Lions, the Chicago Bears and the Dolphins, plus the above-listed 1-3 franchises, we can see that the entire NFL is above .500, a winning enterprise, though a value NOT being experienced by teams that have fallen far from high expectations, e.g., the Giants, the Steelers, the NC East’s 1-3 Washington Redskins, the Falcons. . . The nine 2-2/.500 franchises are the AC West’s San Diego Chargers, AC East’s N.Y. Jets and Buffalo Bills, the AC North’s Ravens, Cleveland Browns and Cincinnati Bengals, the NC West’s San Francisco 49ers and Arizona Cardinals, and the NC East’s Cowboys. . . // . . . BRONCOS, EAGLES---DURNG WEEK 4, the Denver Broncos defense played against the Philadelphia Eagles offense with radar pulsed to the max, bent on high RPM/hard HP intervention. Keeping the Eagles offense to 20 points wasn’t an easy ride for the Broncos pass rush unit, tackles and cornerbacks. Meanwhile, the Eagles defense couldn’t do the same against a Broncos offense that accrued points from nearly every drive to the red zone and beyond, racking up 52 points. Broncos QB Peyton Manning’s four TD passes for 28 of the Broncos 52 points tied the NFL record for TD’s earned by a QB in the first four weeks of a season—16. And, credit must be given to Broncos special team players, to Trindon Holliday’s first quarter kickoff return run of 105 yards for a TD, and to Steven Johnson fourth Q block of an Eagles punt, Johnson then taking the football for a Broncos TD. In most skill categories, the Broncos offense dominated---35 first downs, 472 total net yards including 337 passing yards averaging 8.7 yards per, also ball possession for more than the entire half of the game---33 minutes. Too, no Q occurred without the Broncos gaining double-digit points, and by endgame Broncos wide receivers Eric Decker, DeMaryius Thomas and Wes Welker received for 88, 86 and 76 yards respectively, and Broncos running back, Knowshon Moreno, rushed for 78 yards. QB Manning completed 28 of 34 passes, his four TD passes totaling 327 yards. The Eagles respectable 450 total net yards for the game, which included more net rushing yards than the Broncos had achieved, 166 vs. the Broncos 141, just couldn’t convert to enough TD or field goal points against a Broncos defense that has improved with each contest since the pre-season, though slightly per game. When Broncos linebacker, Von Miller, and cornerback, Champ Bailey, return to the field from the bench, this defense will likely keep enemy points lower than the 20+ attained by opposing franchises every game since September 5. QB Vick accrued only 14 completed passes of 27 thrown for 247 yards, 80 yards fewer than Manning’s total. . . // . . . MLB---Post-season battles are underway. Regarding Wild Card teams afield, from the National League it’s the Cincinnati Reds up against the Pittsburgh Pirates (both, NL Central Division), and from the American League it’s the Cleveland Indians (AL Central) against the Tampa Bay Rays (AL East). Either the Reds or Pirates will then compete versus the NL Central’s St. Louis Cardinals, and either the Indians or Rays will go against the AL West’s Texas Rangers, winner here vs. the AL East’s Boston Red Sox. Other division series this week will include the NL East’s Atlanta Braves versus the NL West’s Los Angeles Dodgers, and the AL Central’s Detroit Tigers against the AL West’s Oakland Athletics. . . // . . . COLORADO ROCKIES---A ballclub that reaches the MLB post-season with more than 90 wins can usually count the reasons why with fewer than five fingers, while a team that couldn’t win more than 70 games in a season needs several hands to count the reasons why, just like there’s only one way to be born and a million different ways to fail in life. The Colorado Rockies just finished their third losing season in a row, and so there’s detective work ahead in order to ferret out the multiple reasons why, from the start a difficult task because of a peculiar irony that has existed across the three losing years. In each of the three years, the Rockies have not only had the physical assets afield and the management behind it for a winning season, they put forth greater numbers in major game categories than that which catapulted other ball clubs onto higher wins and directly into post-season berths. The Rockies have been like the NFL team that achieves one first down after another and reaches an end zone in record time, then fails at third and fourth down attempts to score a TD or even a field goal, for instance, hitters such as the now retired Todd Helton, Carlos Gonzalez, Troy Tulowitzki and Michael Cuddyer envied by hitters on other clubs for their high batting averages and nearly errorless defense maneuvers, and starting pitchers Jorge DeLaRosa, Jhoulys Chacin and Juan Nicasio capable of winning records and low ERA’s, and reliever Rex Brothers the same. During the recent season, the Rockies defeated every division first place team that they played against one or more times, yet the Rockies finished last in the NL West, unable from mid-August on to accrue the runs needed to prevail in series of three and four games per. No matter the number of hits and number of players getting on base, if such doesn’t translate into more runs than obtained by the opposing club, a team might as well be zip, zero, Nada when it comes to rankings and post-season candidacy, for it’s runs that win a game. Teams that in a single contest have produced doubles and triples, lots of base-runners, and several catches from acrobatics that circus performers couldn’t complete, they often lose when at third outs multiple runners are left on base. This has happened far too often to the Rockies during the team’s beneath the margin years, meanwhile the pitching staff remaining sparse with winning starters + relievers capable of game recovery tactics. These will probably be the first game-categories that the Rockies manager, coaches and players investigate during the off-season. END/ml