NFL: WEEK 7, OBSERVATIONS; BRONCOS FACING COLTS // MLB: LC'S NOW // NBA 2013/14

SPORTS NOTEBOOK // 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: Week 7,Observations; Broncos Facing Colts // MLB: LC’s Now // NBA 2013/14. . . NFL---NFL WEEK 7 could be the week during which current division leading franchises could feel serious heat in the standings, though not the National Conference West’s number one franchise, the now 7-1 Seattle Seahawks, having last night defeated the NC West’s now 3-4 Arizona Cardinals. Regarding other “Bigs,” on Sunday the American Conference West’s first place 6-0 Denver Broncos will face the AC South’s number one team, the 4-1 Indianapolis Colts, the former expected to win but it won’t be an easy walk in the park. Bronco vulnerabilities have already appeared---in no game this year has the Broncos defense kept an opposing offense from fewer than 19 points. Should the Broncos lose and the AC West’s second place 6-0 Kansas City Chiefs defeat the AC South’s 2-4 Houston Texans (as expected), the Broncos could then slip from first to second place. And, the National Conference East’s number one team, the 3-3 Philadelphia Eagles, could lose to the division’s second place team, the 3-3 Dallas Cowboys, and exchange positions in the rankings. Meanwhile, the AC North’s 4-2 Cincinnati Bengals versus NC North’s 4-2 Detroit Lions game could see a losing Bengals tied at first with the now AC North’s 3-3 Baltimore Ravens that are likely to undo the AC East’s 3-3 New York Jets on Sunday. If the Lions win this one, and the NC North’s now first place team, the Chicago Bears, lose to the NC East’s 1-3 Washington Redskins (doubtful), the Lions will own first place, Bears off to second. And, some marginal teams may not drop in the ratings during Week 7, in that they are facing beatable teams on Sunday, providing, of course, that they can rise to their best potential (call it a 54-46 shot that they will lose)---the AC North’s 3-3 Cleveland Browns vs. the NC North 3-2 Green Bay Packers, NC South 2-3 Carolina Panthers vs. the NC West’s 3-3 St. Louis Rams. As for the teams that are winless so far, the AC South’s 0-5 Jacksonville Jaguars will probably be kneed on Sunday by the AC West’s 2-3 San Diego Chargers, the NC South’s 0-5 Tampa Bay Buccaneers by the AC South’s 1-4 Atlanta Falcons, but on Monday the NC East’s 0-6 N.Y. Giants have a shot at their first win vs. the NC North’s 1-4 Minnesota Vikings. Untouched among division leading franchises this week from the Bye principle, that’s the NC South’s 5-1 New Orleans Saints, and they may not have much to fear until Week 13 (December 2d), when they will face the Seahawks (all challengers to the Saints until then will be from lower-ranked clubs). The Saints and Seahawks are now the two leading teams within the NC. Inside the AC, Week’s 8 through 13 won’t be as easy as it will be for the Saints or Seahawks, for the top two of the AC, the Broncos and the Chiefs, will be facing each other twice as Week 13 commences. . . //. . . BRONCOS, COLTS---MUCH is being said about old gun versus young gun, the experienced quarterback up against an up-and-coming QB, age against youth. There’s talk reflecting words uttered often where people retire in America, “Old age & wisdom beats youth all the time,” and we’ve heard drama about former Colts star vs. new Colts star, this dominated by sentiment causing both QB’s to falter while struggling harder than needed to prevail one against the other. It’s all nonsense, excessive hype. While both franchises have numerous game-winning attributes, the Broncos have shown to this year own the most in advantages, for example, not just the season’s best QB in Peyton Manning but the season’s top QB-receiver package, that is, Manning to wide receivers Eric Decker, Demaryius Thomas, Julius Thomas, Wes Welker, and to rush-maestro/RB Knowshon Moreno. It is this connectivity from Manning’s precision passes and handoffs that have given the Broncos amazingly high drive-to-touchdown percentages per 2013 game played, within this a high efficiency rating regarding third and fourth down transferences into points on the board. Unless the Colts can disrupt this Manning-receiver connectivity via pass-rush tactics that can disorient Manning, or from getting between the football and Broncos receivers by reading receiver maneuvers before they can occur and by being where that can happen, surely then the Broncos will score in each quarter of the competition. But the Colts QB, Andrew Luck, can also pass deep, short, and at any angle with much accuracy and fast enough to evade most pass-rushes that have gone at him this year, and the Colts WR’s are not of the slower, less canny caliber found within teams like the Buccaneers and the Jaguars. Here’s where the Broncos defense has to deliver “big time,” and with Broncos LB Von Miller and CB Champ Bailey afield some improvement will certainly be noted. Super-reliance must also be asked of Broncos defender, Danny Trevathan, tackler-supreme. So, whichever team wins this event, it will be from defense execution serving as spoilage that returns the football quickly to brother-offense, more than from the QB-led offense tactics that can follow. Our pick: both teams finishing in double digits, the Broncos winning by no more than six. . . //. . . MLB---IN baseball it’s after the euphoria of a sweep that many fans begin to sulk, saying, “If only the LC series could have gone to six games, 3-3 instead of 4-0, there would have been two more games between the two best LC-appointed teams.” Presently, the American League Championship series and National league Championship series are headed for that longer framework, best of seven from 3-3 standings, which is where the Boston Red Sox and the Detroit Tigers now sit. Tonight’s Los. Angeles Dodgers vs. St. Louis Cardinals game could go in the same direction from their current two wins apiece scenario. Thus far in the post-season we’ve been watching what could be characterized as pitching duels, suggesting that faster and more cunning work from the mound has overtaken professional baseball. More than likely, if this is so it’s largely characteristic of the post-season, when the much fewer number of games to be played relative to those of the long regular season allows a team’s best hurlers to go all out, no holding back in order for them to maintain for the many teams that they would be facing across six months of baseball. Too, vs. fewer teams in the post-season the hurlers can be enemy-specific, matched deliberately within the context of right or left handed pitcher against left or right handed batters. Moreover, during a regular season all batters have been afield and at the plate a lot more often than pitchers have been to the mound, so they are more worn in a post-season environment, though not by much. Also, the number of home runs and extra base hits from line-ups during the regular season hasn’t declined in ways suggesting that mound-work is definitely the superior element in baseball. Even in the post-season, number of no-hitters, of shutouts, is indeed rare. All is as it should be. Anyway, no-one wants to make a liar out of the late and great hitter, Ted Williams, who kept repeating that hitting a baseball is surely the hardest action to pull off within the entire realm of sports. Back to the LC’s, because we’ve been asked how we’d like it; well, our hope is that the WS will compete the Los Angeles Dodgers against the Boston Red Sox, a sort of West Vs. East competition. Truth be told, the Cardinals and the Tigers could be the ticket. Few post-seasons in the existing decade have been about teams as close in equality of skills and power as the four involved in this year’s post-season. . . //. . . NBA---WHAT many observers appreciated from the 86-62 Brooklyn Nets win over the Miami Heat last night was that it underscored two positive notes, that an NBA championship team of a previous season is beatable, and that a rookie head coach of a lesser but still high-powered team can be among leading providers of that win, if not its sole architect (what coach ever is the only win factor in an NBA game, anyway, which former great HC’s Phil Jackson and George Karl are among the first to say is impossible?) The Nets won a game expected to be close and to go either side of the court by a wide margin of points not just from outshooting but by being where shots could be taken relatively easy, and that emerged from tactics that put the accent on “surprise,” the Nets shooters suddenly where they weren’t expected to be or to be doing, e.g., driving forward as if in a half-court game (street-game, if you will, fast break following fast break within the same drive, oops! yeah, points from under the board, and, hey, what’s that, back to three point shooting from the sides?) The Heat seemed arrogant to a man, as if they expected to win with a hand tied behind each of five backs throughout, even late in the fourth Q, and best of the best yet LeBron James is supposed to know a lot about the danger of player-arrogance in basketball, for that matter, within any other endeavor. . . Rest of the pack? Here’s our outlay of NBA teams likely to be close to one another as first and second place teams within their respective divisions “prior to All Star Week, and possibly after”---Western Conference-Northwest Division, the Denver Nuggets and Utah Jazz tied at second and a lot closer to first place Oklahoma City Thunder than ever before, possibly just two games behind. . . WC-Southwest, either the San Antonio Spurs or Grizzlies at the top, all other WC-SW teams anyone’s guess as to standings. . . WC-Pacific, though the Los Angeles Lakers finished eighth in the WC for 2012/13, the Kobe Bryant + Steve Nash attributes have jelled somewhat and the Lakers leading this division would be possible were it not for last season’s WC fourth place team, the L.A. Clippers, maintaining speed and skills, the Clippers likely the division’s numero uno, Lakers behind by three or four games. . . Eastern Conference-Atlantic Division, the N.Y. Knicks in the lead from November on, the Nets second from three losses, Boston Celtics third by no more than five losses. . . EC-Southeast, hard to see any change from how this division ended the 2012/13 season, the Heat ahead by as many as six games, the Atlanta Hawks second. . . EC-Central, the Chicago Bulls ahead of the Pacers by no more than three. END/ml.