Saturday’s Den: Ranking the months of the year, and some other stuff…….

These days, there are no bad months, but some are better than others.

12) January— Living in upstate NY, 31 days of potentially horrendous weather; Sundays are lot slower once the NFL regular season is over. If I ever get smart and move to Las Vegas, then January would move up a few spots on the list.

11) February— Ranked ahead of January because it is three fewer days (this year, only two fewer days). Spring training starts in February, never a bad thing.

T9) April/May— Baseball season starts, NBA/NHL playoffs, NFL Draft, weather gets normal, a good time of year.

8) December— I’m in Las Vegas for Christmas most years; NFL regular season bowl games, college hoop, lot of good stuff, offsetting the potential for cruddy weather.

7) October— Good time for a trip to Las Vegas; baseball playoffs, football season, the college basketball magazines come out.

6) September— When I was a kid, September was by far the worst month of the year- back to school. Now? Not so much. Football season starts and the weather is still warm.

T4) June, July, August— Nothing bad about these three months in upstate New York; warm weather, lot of baseball to watch.

3) November — Busiest month of the year; college football/basketball, NBA/NFL, lot of research and studying to do. When I had an actual job, this was a great month— three days off— Election Day, Veterans Day, Thanksgiving. Now, every day is a day off. 🙂

1) March— Weather is getting better, lot of college basketball to watch and I try to throw a trip to the desert onto the schedule. Daytime TV’s best month; exhibition baseball every day.

Elsewhere on a winter Friday night……
a) Butler 89, Marquette 85 OT— Tremendous game to watch; Butler plays without its PG and wins, snapping a 3-game skid.

There was a weird moment in this game; tie game with 0:20 left, and Marquette fouls a Butler player who is shooting 85% on line- it looked intentional, and it looked like Wojciechowski told the kid to foul— why????? The SCORE WAS TIED!!!

b) Suns 103, Spurs 99— Phoenix is 10-10 on the road, a much-improved team

c) Bucks 116, Hornets 103— This game was played in Paris..

d) Siena 70, Marist 57— Saints are 8-0 at home, 0-9 on road; this was their first MAAC cover this season (1-8 ATS). 

Monday’s List of 13: Looking at Hall of Fame NFL coaches……

13) Pro Football Hall of Fame and CBS made a big production Saturday night out of surprising Bill Cowher on air, announcing that he’s been elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. It was emotional and it made for good TV.

Then the same thing happened on FOX Sunday with Jimmy Johnson getting the good news.

Cowher coached the Steelers for 15 years, going 149-90-1 in regular season, 12-9 in playoffs, winning two AFC titles, and also Super Bowl 40 (I’m not great with Roman numerals).

Johnson went 80-64 in only nine years in the NFL, winning Super Bowl in consecutive years (1992-93). His win %age in Miami (.563) was actually better than it was in Dallas (.550), but he won his titles and made his name with the Cowboys.

Johnson was 81-34-3 as a college coach at Oklahoma State, Miami, which is irrelevant to what we’re talking about today.

12) But the underlying question is this; are Cowher/Johnson deserving of this honor? I’m not saying they are or they aren’t, but we’re going to look into it a little right now.

Here are four other NFL coaches, none of whom are in the Hall of Fame, who all won two Super Bowls (Johnson won two, Cowher won one):

11) Tom Coughlin: 170-150 in 20 years, won two Super Bowls with the Giants, but his best coaching was done in Jacksonville, where he led the expansion Jaguars to a 45-19 record in a stretch from 1996-99, Jacksonville’s 2nd thru 5th years in the NFL.

Coughlin was 12-7 in playoff games.

10) Tom Flores: 97-87 in 12 years, nine years with the Raiders; 8-3 in playoff games. Flores won Super Bowls 15 and 18.

He was in Seattle for three years after the Raiders- that didn’t go well (14-34). 

9) George Seifert: Took over the powerhouse 49ers after Bill Walsh left, went 98-30 in eight years there, winning Super Bowls 24, 29. He was 10-5 in playoff games. 

Seifert coached Carolina for three years after that, going 16-32; no bueno. He also coached Cornell in the Ivy League for a couple years in the 70’s.

8) Mike Shanahan: 170-138 in 20 years, 8-6 in playoff games, winning Super Bowls 32-33 in John Elway’s last two years as a player. Also worked as a head coach for Al Davis, Daniel Snyder; neither of those tenures went well, but he was 138-86 in his 14 years in Denver.

I’m thinking that Coughlin and Shanahan will both eventually get in the Hall of Fame.

7) Chiefs 51, Texans 31— Houston led this game 24-0 with 10:58 left in 2nd quarter, then KC scored three TD’s in a span of 3:18; by halftime, the Chiefs led, 28-24. Chiefs went on to score TD’s on seven consecutive drives- they scored so much, the team ran out of fireworks that they shoot off after touchdowns.

First six playoff games this year went under the total; this one didn’t. 

6) Packers 28, Seahawks 23— Green Bay led 21-3 at half; Adams caught eight passes for 140 yards and two TD’s. Packers visit the 49ers in Santa Clara next Sunday. 

5) Thursday night, Nashville Predators’ goalie Pekka Rinne scored a goal, the 15th time that has happened in he NHL, by 12 different goalies. It was the first time in six years an NHL goalie scored.

Retired goalies Martin Brodeur scored three goals, Ron Hextall twice. 

4) A guy in Hillsboro, OR bought a Boeing 727 passenger jetliner for $100,000, propped it up on two massive concrete pillars in the woods, and made it his home. Hillsboro is a suburb of Portland, and apparently, this guy is pretty rich.

The pictures I saw online looked pretty nice. 

3) According to one tax professional, a New York couple filing their tax return jointly with $5M in taxable income would save $394,931 in taxes by moving to Florida. 

2) New Orleans coach Alvin Gentry says he wants his team to take 40 3’s a game; Pelicans’ last eight games went over the total- they’re lot of fun to watch.

1) Since 2010, nine NFL teams started a season 8-0; none of them won the Super Bowl that year; last 8-0 team to go on to win a Super Bowl? The ’09 Saints.

This year’s 49ers are the ninth of those teams.