Postseason Awards

Here are my NFL Postseason awards:

MVP: Peyton Manning, QB, Denver Broncos.  I mean, who else?  He broke just about every passing record there is to break.  Manning will go down in history as possibly the greatest regular season quarterback ever, and one of the greatest passers in history.  He ranks up there with Dan Marino when it comes to passing ability.

Offensive Player of the Year: Peyton Manning, QB, Denver Broncos.  This award often goes to the non-QB who didn't win the MVP, but by a wide margin, Manning was the best offensive player in the league this year.

Defensive Player of the Year: Luke Kuechly, LB, Carolina Panthers AND Richard Sherman, CB, Seattle Seahawks.  Kuechly is one of the best defenders in the NFL.  156 tackles and 4 picks this year.  And he's only 22.  That's right...22 years old.  That is 2 years older than me.  Wow.  I couldn't really decide between Kuechly and Sherman.  So I gave it to both of them.  Sherman is the best corner in the game. Period.  Look at this stat: Sherman was targeted only 58 times (least in the NFL) and he still had 8 INTs (most in the NFL).  How is that even possible???

Offensive Rookie of the Year: Keenan Allen, WR, San Diego Chargers.  Nope, I'm not jumping on the Eddie Lacy bandwagon.   Keenan Allen made some awesome catches this year (like this one) and greatly contributed to Philip Rivers' resurgence.  Oh, and he had 71 catches and 8 TDs.  Pretty good for a rookie.

Defensive Rookie of the Year: Kiko Alonso, LB, Buffalo Bills.  159 tackles, 4 INTs, and 2 sacks.  That's good enough for me.

Air Player of the Year: Peyton Manning, QB, Denver Broncos.  This is getting kind of repetitive...

Ground Player of the Year: Matt Forte, RB, Chicago Bears.  The second leading rusher in the NFL with 1,339 yards and 9 TDs.  Add his 74 receptions for 600 yards and 3 TDs to that and you've nearly got a 2,000 yard season.  Forte is the epitome of the dual threat running back.  He's also a true workhorse as he accounted for over 30% of the Bears offense.

Comeback Player of the Year: Philip Rivers, QB, San Diego Chargers.  Another no-brainer.  The difference between the 2013 Rivers and the 2011-2012 Rivers was incredible.  Rivers took the team on his back this year.  And he was second to only Peyton statistically speaking.

Coach of the Year: Pete Carroll, Head Coach, Seattle Seahawks.  NFL players just voted Carroll as the coach they'd most want to play for.  That's saying something.  The way he interacts with his players is awesome...you can tell how much they all love him, and he knows how to get the most out of his team.  Seriously, who had even heard of half of Seattle's players before a year or two ago?

Play of the Year: Calvin Johnson, WR, Detroit Lions.  If you don't know what play I'm talking about, you should.  Here it is for those of you who have been living under a rock all year ;) Literally the best catch I have ever seen.  The vision and strength that must have been needed to make that catch is mind boggling. (Runner up: Alshon Jeffery.  You can see his catch on that same link.)

Who do YOU think should have won all these awards?  Leave a comment below.

My Response to the State of the Union Address

Last Tuesday night I spent an hour and a half watching President Barack Obama speak to the Cabinet, Congress, the Supreme Court, and to the nation about the state of our country.  Now, it is no secret I am no big fan of President Obama, and I didn't have very high expectations for this address.  His past SOTU addresses have been full of largely empty words and sometimes just plain lies.  Rarely has he actually laid out any definitive plan of action when it comes to solving America's problems. But I was honestly hoping that he would at least state some solid plans for the future (even if I didn't agree with them), if only to put on a good face for the rest of the world.  Unfortunately, he didn't do that.  So, without further ado, here are some of my thoughts on a few things he did say...

The Job Market and Income Equality

President Obama spent a good part of his speech on jobs and wages.  One of the first things he said was that America has "the lowest unemployment rate in over five years; a rebounding housing market, [and] a manufacturing sector that's adding jobs for the first time since the 1990s [...]"  What he left out was that the unemployment rate is still at 6.7%...only .6% lower than it was in 2008.  And if you add discouraged workers to that number, it goes up to 13.1%.  I realize that the President was trying to take an optimistic look at things, but I don't think it is completely realistic to claim that things are so much better.

Another thing the President stressed was his concern over income inequality in America.  One of his strongest, most definitive points was that he wants minimum wage to be raised to $10 an hour.  In fact, he said he will sign an executive order that will increase the minimum wage of all federal employees to $10.10/hr.  Now, while this sounds like a praiseworthy plan, I think he has overlooked several things.  First of all, what about small businesses that don't have any money to spare?  There are many small businesses that would be either forced out of business or have to lay off workers if they were required to pay all their employees $10/hr.  Secondly, an increase in minimum wage would cause an increase in the cost of goods and services.  Big companies, such as Walmart, are definitely not going to absorb the cost themselves.  Instead, they will raise their prices. Obama used Costco as an example of a store that raised their wages without increasing prices.  However, if all companies were required to raise their wages, they couldn’t all be counted on keeping prices the same.  I believe that this inflation of prices would somewhat cancel out the higher wages.

Obama also touched on the wage gap between men and women.  He claimed that women only make 77 cents on the dollar, compared to men.  While this is technically true, it fails to look at all the facts.  Women, as a whole, make 77 cents for every dollar men make, but if you factor in that women work different jobs than men, different hours than men, and different professions than men, the real figure would be about 91 cents on the dollar.[1]  So, while women do make slightly less than men, it is not as big of a deal as Obama is making out of it.

Healthcare

Where to begin? The President spent about 600 words of his 6,900 word speech on healthcare, in specific, the Affordable Care Act.  He mostly used these words to promote the healthcare law, without really giving too many details about it.  He announced that 12 million Americans have signed up for healthcare (both private and Medicaid).  Of course, nothing was said about how six million people have lost their previous plans and doctors, or about the massive failure of the Obamacare website, but that was to be expected.  He also scolded the Republicans for passing 40 bills to overturn the law.  “Let’s not have another 40-something votes to repeal a law that’s already helping millions of Americans […] the first 40 were plenty.”  This was one of the things I agreed with him on.  As much as I oppose the healthcare law, I don’t think there was any point in the House passing that many bills when they knew they would never pass the Senate.  It just made the Republicans seem whiny and desperate.  It also must have been an enormous waste of time and money.

Overall, I was surprised that Obama didn’t spend more time touting his healthcare law.  I think it is fair to say that the Affordable Care Act is his biggest accomplishment as president, so I was expecting it to take up a good portion of his speech.  I suppose he thought there were other, more pressing issues to discuss, now that the law is nearly in full effect.

The Environment, “Climate Change”, and Energy

            A large chunk of the address focused on America’s energy situation.  The president celebrated the fact that we are becoming more and more energy independent.  He promoted the use of natural gas and solar power.  Then, he dropped a bombshell.  He said, “The debate is settled.  Climate change is a fact.”  Really, Mr. President? On what do you base that assertion?  I think that statement is a little hard to prove. While the climate is indeed changing, it isn’t exactly a scientific fact that humans are causing it.

“I Have a Pen and a Phone”

            Several weeks ago Mr. Obama proclaimed that he “has a pen and a phone,” meaning that he wasn’t going to sit around and wait for legislation to be passed in order to do the things he wanted done.  On Tuesday he reiterated that message when he said, “I’m eager to work with all of you, but America does not stand still – and neither will I.  So wherever and whenever I can take steps without legislation to expand opportunity for more American families, that’s what I’m going to do.”  He said this right in front of both Houses of Congress…yep, all 535 of them.  I was sitting there thinking, “Something is not right with this picture.”  Obama had just told them that he didn’t need them and that he was going to bypass them whenever he felt like it and as much as possible…and they stood up and applauded.  Say, what?  The fact that our president stood in front of the country and proclaimed that he was going to disregard the Constitution and the checks and balances in order to promote his own agenda is frightening, to say the least; especially when Congress not only doesn’t do anything to stop it, but actually applauds him when he announces it.  The Founding Fathers are rolling over in their graves right about now.  This was the exact situation they were trying to prevent when they came up with the three branches of government.

Conclusion

            Well, I have already written way too much.  You’re all probably bored to tears by now…or completely asleep.  Even so, there is so much more I could have said.  Oh well, I’ll save it for another day.  But, I digress…

            In conclusion, Obama’s 5^th State of the Union Address fell tremendously short.  He made a large number of empty, vague promises for the future, and failed to say anything really substantial.  He had a lot of good rhetoric, but very few specifics.  As we have come to expect with the president, it was a very good speech when it comes to its delivery.  No one can deny the fact that he knows how to give a good speech (at least when he has a teleprompter, anyway).  However, it seemed to me that Obama was just repeating the same things he has been saying for the past five years.  But where are the results?  His speech also gave me cause for alarm, most notably, in that he seems hell bent on overstepping his Constitutional powers in every way possible.  It also seemed like he was saying a lot of things that were not in line with things he has said in the past.  But, that is a topic for another day.  So, I will leave you with that.

            God bless you all, and God bless the United States of America!

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[1] http://www.examiner.com/article/obama-s-gender-pay-gap-is-myth-it-s-just-not-true-experts-say