10/24 (Tebow) Quickie

As a longtime Tebow-watcher, the defining moment for me of yesterday's Are-You-Not-Entertained?! game was just after Prater kicked the game-winning field goal in OT. Tebow's reaction was to drop to a knee, then calmly walk around hugging his teammates. No jumping around. No histrionics.

Tebow was clearly glad to have won the game, but he clearly understood that his performance for the first 55 minutes was sub-par. Partly that was him, partly that was the typically orthodox-to-a-fault Broncos coaches' play-calling.

When things opened up in the furious final few minutes -- the first successful NFL comeback from 15 points down with 3 minutes to play in 40 years -- good things happened. John Fox could learn a lesson from that.

Prepare yourselves: It's going to be a long week of Tebow mania -- not from me, but from the mainstream media; I'm demure by comparison. I think it's fair -- even predictable -- that Tebow's performance gave both the fans and the haters something to latch on to. Wouldn't be any other way.

Other notes from NFL Week 7: Drew Brees was incredible, even if it was against the Colts... Aaron Rodgers' 2011 season is quite possibly the greatest I have ever seen by any NFL player (or perhaps any team-sport athlete)... Love the breakouts, including DeMarco Murray's... I have to admit: I thought Carson Palmer would be a lot better (then again, that's a low bar).

CFB: LSU-Alabama? Yes! Twice? No! I said this below -- I think that LSU and Alabama are clearly the two best teams in the country, and that won't change after they play on November 5. But this idea of a rematch in the event the other unbeaten teams get nicked (and it could easily happen -- OK St losing to Okla and Stanford losing to Oregon and Clemson losing to anyone) is brutal. The amazingness of the game on Nov. 5 is that it is a de facto playoff; that is entirely undercut if the idea is that the loser gets another shot. I'm aggressively anti-Rematch.

(I am, however, rooting for the above-mentioned unbeatens to lose; I'd love to see a LSU-Bama winner vs. Boise national title game, even though there is an entirely fair argument that penalizing a 1-loss team (or teams) for having an infinitely more difficult schedule than unbeaten Boise is patently unfair.)

MLB: Derek Holland's mustache is as amazing as his performance last night. This is one hell of an entertaining World Series, and the idea that it's now a best-of-3, with Carpenter vs. Wilson tonight in the so-called "pivotal" Game 5, is quickly bringing this Series up the all-time best-ever rankings.

-- D.S.