Tomlinson and Westbrook Join the 30 Something’s RB Club

LaDainian Tomlinson and Brian Westbrook were cut by their respective teams this week, joining the long list of great to hall of fame running backs who hit the wall after reaching the big 3-0.

Westbrook was drafted by the Eagles in 2002, made 2 pro bowls, and is the Eagles all-time leading rusher. However, injuries and mounting concussions led to him missing several games last season in which he turned 30. After Phily drafted Lesean McCoy in the first round before last season, Westbrook became expendable.

Meanwhile Tomlinson was drafted by the Chargers in 2001, made 5 pro bowls, broke several NFL records including tds in a year, earned MVP honors in 2006, in an 8 year hall of fame career. However after turning 30 before last season and lingering injuries, Tomlinson had the worst season of his career. With the emergence of Darren Sproles, he too became replaceable.

This trend is very common recently, especially with running backs that have had large workloads/carries. Shaun Alexander went from NFL MVP, 1800+ yds, 27tds at 28, to cut at 30. Marshall Faulk only had 3 tds after the season he turned 30. Eddie George cracked 1,000 yards at 30, but his touchdowns dropped from 12 to 5. Larry Johnson and Jamal Lewis were also given pink slips this year after turning 30. Edgerrin James and Fred Taylor were shipped out by their long term teams a few years back because they saw the signs coming.

In fact, this sporcle illustrates the lonely list of backs 30 or older that have run for 1200+ yards.

The recent exceptions above shared carries, had late career comebacks, or strangely enough went to UVA, while the earlier ones are Hall of Famers.

Which current running backs should be looking for realtors? Besides ones mentioned in the sporcle, only Ricky Williams ran for 1,000+ yards last year and is over 28. Fred Jackson is 28 and had over 1000 yards, but only had 2 tds and was filling in for suspended Marshawn Lynch. McGahee (28), Parker (29), and Fargas (29) are already backups, while Julius Jones (28, 663 yds, 2 tds), Ronnie Brown (28, 648 yds, 8 tds), and Clinton Portis (28, 494 yds, 1 td) should be calling their agents and reading the fine print on their contracts.

Miracle on Ice II?

30 years to the day after the Miracle on Ice in Lake Placid, the United States Men’s Hockey team sits on top of the Olympic Hockey world for the time being after pulling off a huge upset last night. After the 5-3 victory of favored and host Canada, the U.S. is the top seed going into the tournament portion of the competition. While this matchup paled in comparison in significance politically to the Soviet Union upset, and wasn’t in the medal round yet, it’s still a sweet victory. Hockey is Canada’s sport and since it’s hosting the games, a gold medal is more important to them than any other combined. The loss ends a 50 year drought for the USA vs Canada as well. It does not help Canada that the rest of the game’s have not gone their way either, see below. I think the best part is that Sidney Crosby deflected in the first US goal. USA! USA!

Vancouver Olympic Fail

Oh Canada, I’m sure this is not the way you wanted to start the Olympics. After years of build up and preparation, there have been several mishaps already.

• Obviously, there was the fatal luge accident in which the officials even blamed the athlete, while fixing the course overnight.
• Then the last part of the opening ceremonies failed when one of the pillars malfunctioned, leaving Gretzky out in the cold.
• The warm weather has created postponements and inadequate slope conditions. Since when is there more snow in DC than Canada? They can’t control the weather like the Chinese?
• Even the “green” zamboni’s didn’t work.
• And I’m sure there will be some figure skating controversy later on.
• And there are other mishaps going on for fans there.

At least it didn’t cost NBC much and they could always fall back on their primetime and late night programming. Oops.

Cavs and Cavs and Caps Oh My

Even though it’s a snowy February, and the sports world is focused on the Super Bowl, my favorite spring teams are heating up. The Capitals and Lebron’s Cavaliers are on long winning streaks, while UVa had a long winning streak recently snapped, but bounced back at defending champ UNC. The Caps and Cavs now have the best records in their league, and UVa is only a half a game out of first place in the ACC. Here is a look at their recent runs by the numbers:

Caps:

• 12: Franchise record winning streak
• 1: Loss since Ovechkin was named captain 29 days ago
• 15: Number of wins out of 16 since January 5^th
• 58: Goals scored by the Caps during the streak, compared to
• 27: Goals allowed
• 0: Losses at home in 2010
• 4: Games I attended
• 1: Broken jaw off of an Ovechkin shot
• 3: Unleash the Furies
• 48: Zamboni rides

Cleveland Cavaliers:

• 10: Game winning streak
• 4: Wins over Wade, Bosh, and Kobe
• 14: Margin of lead in Central Division
• 1: Amount of times Lebron rapped to himself while inbounding the ball
• 27: Annoying Lebron puppet commercials
• 115: Flops by Anderson Varejao
• 6: 3-pointers attempted by 7’3” Zydrunas Ilgauskas
• 2: Injuries to key guards Mo Williams and Delonte West

Virginia Cavaliers:

• 8: Game winning streak
• 6: Years since having a streak that long
• 3: Wins against top 25 teams
• 18.2: Scoring average for Landesberg, 3^rd in the ACC
• 11: ACC preseason rank
• 0: Shirts sweat through by Tony Bennett
• 1: "In the face!!!" throw down dunk
  

While these numbers are all well and good, and make for some fun entertainment in between NFL playoff games, there are four other important numbers:

• 36: Days until the ACC tournament
• 68: Days until the NHL playoffs
• 71: Days until the NBA playoffs
• 0: Combined titles for the Caps, Cavs, and Cavs

Hopefully these teams will have hot streaks when it matters in the spring.

(Photo is an actual screenshot during the end of Tuesday’s game w/ Craig Laughlin writing in the 11, courtesy of the DC Sports Bog)