NFL Week 16 Picks and Previews

Last week was officially the week of special teams. DeSean Jackson, Tyjuan Hagler, Dan Connolly and Devin Hester all made great return plays to help their team to wins. Atlanta, Chicago, New England and Pittsburgh have wrapped up a play-off spot. With bye weeks and home field on the line though I don’t expect these sides to relent. A shorter preview this week, it’s Christmas time in case you didn’t realise and the family are over tomorrow. This has meant getting the house ship-shape and less time for NFL. Home team in caps…

Mercurial Johnson Brings Australia Back From The Brink

Before play started on day 2 in Perth one Australian book maker had paid out for England retaining the Ashes to the tune of $400,000.

With Australia having been bowled out in the first day for just 268 you could see how one might consider this series a done deal already. Australia were in dire need of stellar opening session in the field to restore some sort of competitive element to this Ashes series. And oh boy did they get it.

Week 15 picks and previews

Last week was a horror story of back door covers and crazy performances, resulting in my worst weekly record. For that I can only apologise. One thing last week did prove however is that New England are the team to beat. They laid a beating on Chicago in blizzard-like conditions. Elsewhere around the league San Diego got a life-line as they pummelled the Brodie Croyle lead Chiefs and amazingly the 4-9 Arizona Cardinals aren’t yet eliminated from the play-off race. This week is full of elimination games and key clashes, so let’s get into it. Home team in caps…

NFL Week 14 Picks and Previews

The dominant power in the AFC resides in Foxboro. New England’s 45-3 Monday Night victory over the Jets put them firmly in the driving seat for home field advantage in the play-offs. Elsewhere last week San Diego’s string of wins was halted by a resilient Oakland team that ran the ball incredibly well. The big story however was in Denver where 2^nd year head coach Josh McDaniels got shown the door. He’s good enough that he’ll get a coordinator job next season certainly and young enough that he’ll get a second chance to run a team somewhere. There are a few elimination games this week as teams can no longer afford to say “we’ll get it next week”. Sky Sports have decided to show the Red Zone Channel at 6pm instead of one of the games. This means you won’t miss any of the scores from the early games, a great thing for the NFL fan. Home team in caps.

England Dominate In Adelaide, Take Control Of Ashes

England registered their first innings defeat of Australia since the 1986/7 tour with a display to stun the hosts in Adelaide.

Winning the toss on what is usually a good batting track Australia would have been confident of a good result. But such hopes were in taters after losing 3 quick wickets including a disastrous run out of Simon Katich without facing a ball and Captain Ricky Ponting falling to James Anderson for a golden duck. Michael Hussey again provided stern middle order resistance in the face of an assured English bowling attack, putting up a resilient 93. However with just 245 runs on the board in their first innings it was going to take a monumental effort from the hosts to get any sort of positive result.

NFL Week 13 Picks and Previews

After the NFC picture became a little clearer last week it’s time for the AFC to settle a few issues. Pittsburgh and Baltimore, tied at 8-3 for the AFC North lead, meet on Sunday Night Football while the AFC best Patriots and Jets (9-2) square off in Foxboro on Monday Night. Last week was very much a case of The Good, The Bad and The Ugly as San Diego put in a stellar team performance to beat the Colts, Cortland Finnegan and Andre Johnson traded punches and handed over $25,000 each in fines while the Arizona Cardinals were hide-behind-the-sofa ugly as they lost to the 49ers on Monday night. Week 13 means the start of december, where some teams flourish and others flounder. Home team in caps...

BBC Sports Personality Of The Year 2010

There’s no dream walk over for an England World Cup winning player or Andy Murray strolling to the podium to collect the trophy after his victorious summer in Wimbledon. Instead it’s going to be a year for the “small sports”, which in a way is great to see. Last year the award was hijacked as a career achievement award for Ryan Giggs so it’s nice to see a short-list of people where that won’t happen. We have a short list this year of a cyclist, 3 Olympic athletes, 2 golfers, a darts star, a boxing champ, a jockey and cricketer. So who is going to take home the prize this year then?

Evaluating The MVP Race

There have been a lot of great individual performances throughout the NFL this year. From Arian Foster exploding onto the scene in week one to Roddy White elevating his game to an elite level. But the league these days is a passing orientated, win now place. The likes of Foster, Adrian Peterson, Clay Matthews and until recently Phillip Rivers had been discounted from the discussion by analysts because they don’t throw the ball or don’t have the wins. While I don’t agree with this entirely it seems to be the criteria these days. So let’s take a look at the front runners for the award. In no particular order mind.

NFL Week 12 Picks

Another turbulent week is in the books. New England and Indy played out another classic while Brad Childress got shown the door in Minnesota after another heavy loss to a division rival. Vince Young lost his head after being told his thumb injury was too severe to be allowed to continue and stormed away from the field. While the owners have said that both Vince and Head Coach Jeff Fisher will be there next season it has wrecked what was a competitive season for the Titans.

This week has a full set of Thanksgiving games on Thursday and some big match-ups between major contenders. The Bears and Eagles face off with 7 wins a piece while Green Bay travel to the NFC best Atlanta Falcons. So let’s get down to it. Home team in caps.