By Eduardo Maisonet, III / @edthesportsfan

On Saturday night in Ford Field, I’m pretty sure that the fans of the Detroit Lions knew that the inevitable was coming. No, it wasn’t the record that was the buzz of the league coming into week 16, that being the single-season receiving yards record that was under assault by Calvin Johnson, the record being held by the legendary Jerry Rice. No, the inevitable was that the Detroit Lions football team was going to find a way to break the hearts of all of the Honolulu Blue supporters by losing the game in some sick and cruel fashion.

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By Eduardo Maisonet, III / @edthesportsfan

1. Johnny Manziel Wins Show And Tell: The man that they call Johnny Football has officially won the game of Show and Tell. While some kids will bring souvenirs from their various vacation travels like keychains, seashell or a random rock. Johnny Football will bring home a 25-pound trophy with a rendering of John Heisman on it. The Texas A&M redshirt freshman quarterback’s legacy has officially been cemented by outperforming other standout SEC quarterbacks like Cam Newton and Tim Tebow in the process.

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By Eduardo Maisonet, III / @edthesportsfan

The Kansas State Wildcats and the Oklahoma Sooners will each play in a big game on Saturday that will determine who will win the Big 12 conference and an automatic bid to a BCS bowl game during the first week in January 2013. The Wildcats and the Sooners both have just one loss in conference play this season, and would be division leaders in the old Big 12 world we used to live in. (You know, the conference with as many teams as there are in the name of said conference? Yeah, that one.)

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By Eduardo Maisonet, III / @edthesportsfan

I’m not sure if Indiana is a clear cut No. 1 or not, but I do know that there’s no way that North Carolina can be one of the top 15 teams in the country. I was dubious after their 11-point loss versus Butler last week, (which was way worse than the final score indicates, they were down 30 to the Bulldogs in the second half) and after Tuesday’s debacle North Carolina looks like they’re in shambles. Yes, one of the Heels best players (P.J. Hairston) was out with injury, and yes, the Heels are having to deal with losing four players to the 2012 NBA Draft but…

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By Eduardo Maisonet, III / @edthesportsfan

Per the reputable online encyclopedia that is Wikipedia, the site says that No Man’s Land is the following:

 No man’s land is land that is unoccupied or is under dispute between parties that leave it unoccupied due to fear or uncertainty. The term was originally used to define a contested territory or a dumping ground for refuse between fiefdoms.

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By Eduardo Maisonet, III / @edthesportsfan

I can remember a time when I was watching the famed 2009 Kentucky Wildcats team, filled with four stud freshmen and Coach John Calipari directing the ship. While John Wall’s brilliance was breathtaking and Demarcus Cousins physical build and deft touch was poetry in motion, there was plenty of times I saw my attention gravitate to the smallest guy on the court.

Eric Bledsoe, the backup point guard who started at the two-guard because of Wall, the man who sacrificed his own personal gain for the betterment of the team, was still able to constantly get my attention.

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NLF

By Eduardo Maisonet, III / @edthesportsfan

Never had a contest between two 3-5 football clubs seemed to mean so much to the general public. Of course, that’s what happens when you have two of the big name clubs from the NFC East floundering in incompetency like the Dallas Cowboys and the Philadelphia Eagles. Both sides were holding on to the slimmest of chances that they could still make the top six of the conference and make the playoffs, but the added pressure of playing against your hated divisional rival might as well be like throwing gasoline on top of a dumpster fire.

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By Eduardo Maisonet, III / @edthesportsfan

There’s nothing worse in this world than being average as a basketball. Your team is good enough to not be shamed in front of your home fans by the worst teams in the league, but when a team worth a damn stands in your way, you fold like a lawn chair. Is this a team that’s on the rise, building towards a championship? Or is your team on the decline, ready for an overhaul of sorts? Battling for an 8th season can be fun for a team on the rise, but always teetering on the playoff mendoza line for years on end is a tireless exercise in futility. Average futility.

Ladies and gentlemen, meet your 2009-12 Houston Rockets. With a 119-111 record over three years, just missing the playoffs year after year, and a roster full of promising young players and cagey veterans, the team has been one part overachieving and one part mediocre.

Enter, Jamed Edward Harden, Jr.

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By Eduardo Maisonet, III / @edthesportsfan

Cam Newton’s had one heck of a week from a media coverage standpoint. After being the captain at the helm of the Carolina Panthers as his squad lost a winnable game versus the Dallas Cowboys on Sunday, the scrutiny poured on the man who wears No. 1 on his chest.

Newton stood at the podium with that baffled look on his face, talking about setting up a suggestion box because he didn’t have the answer, calling a female reporter “sweetheart” at the press conference….you know, spewing gibberish in front of millions and millions of people. It was a bad look all around, and many are now questioning if Newton’s the man for the job. Others, like Warren Moon, question if race has something to do with the harsh judgment many have levied against Newton. The man with a golden smile was now being scrutinized to the high heavens.

None of this matters. Not one bit.

What matters is the following, in a nutshell:

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By Eduardo Maisonet, III /@edthesportsfan

As the Brooklyn Nets look to begin their first season fresh off a relocation from New Jersey to one of the five boroughs in New York City, everything’s going to feel brand new. New uniforms. New stadiums. New players. New fans. New expectations. Yet, there’s an old reliable hanging amidst the shiny new toys under the roof of the Barclays Center.

His name is Brook Lopez. 24 years old, and entering his fifth season in the NBA, all with the Nets.

Lopez is viewed as a bit of an enigma around the Association. He’s viewed as a prototype NBA center, 7-feet tall and 260-plus pounds, you couldn’t create a better sized center on the video game. He’s also viewed as a soft player, one who lacks the ability to rebound worth a damn and command respect from other teams. For the first three seasons, he was extremely durable. Lopez played in 251 consecutive games, starting in 244 of them. Then Lopez suffered a season-ending injury with a stress fracture in the fifth metatarsal of his right foot and the questions changed from when would Lopez come back into will Lopez be a member of the Nets long-term.

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By Eduardo Maisonet, III / @edthesportsfan

The Notre Dame Fighting Irish are 7-0 this season. They’ve defeated three ranked teams thus far on their journey. They’ve given up just 9.4 points/game this year on defense, while offensively they’ve found ways to be authoritative and efficient while running up the score on lesser foes. Head coach Brian Kelly has molded this team in his image, and the Fighting Irish fans haven’t been this happy since Brady Quinn was the quarterback. Life is good in South Bend.

And yet, I don’t believe in this football team one bit, not at all.

Its not that I don’t believe they’re a good football team. 7-0 is 7-0. Its just that I don’t believe that No. 5 ranking they’ve achieved in the BCS standings. I don’t believe that this team, from what I’ve seen, should be considered as a national championship contender just yet. Their resume screams fraudulence and weakness for a variety of reasons.

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By Eduardo Maisonet, III / @edthesportsfan

The Kansas State Wildcats are 6-0 this season, with a 3-0 conference mark in the Big 12. They’re currently ranked No. 4 in the first release of the BCS standings and in senior quarterback Collin Klein they have one of the frontrunners to be in New York City for the Heisman Trophy presentation. The Wildcats are in the drivers seat for a glorious season with hardware aplenty to cement the legacy for the old man head coach that is Bill Snyder.

Yet, this is unchartered territory for Snyder’s Wildcats. For many a year, Kansas State has been accustomed to being the hunter, not the hunted. Now, as the end of October draws near, the Wildcats sit atop the perch. Looking down the standings, with a big win over Oklahoma in their hip pocket, what’s being called for now is a wire-to-wire finish for the boys in purple. Is K-State ready to handle the pressure of being the lead dog of the conference, potentially hoisting the Big 12 flag as the national championship contender in a crazy 2012 college football season?

Let’s look at the schedule for the final six games of the Wildcats season.

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By Eduardo Maisonet, III / @edthesportsfan

Dallas Cowboys’ wide receiver Dez Bryant had one of the better games of his young career on Sunday afternoon versus the Baltimore Ravens. Bryant, who finished with 13 catches for 95 yards and two touchdowns against a ball-hawking Ravens defense, helped get the Cowboys within two late in the game with an acrobatic touchdown catch late in the fourth quarter. With the score 31-29, the Cowboys went for two and dialed up No. 88 to tie the game. Tony Romo threw a hitch route to the nearside corner of the endzone for Bryant to reel in, yet Bryant botched the catch and the conversion failed. Even a miraculous onside kick recovery and missed field goal attempt at the end of the game could save Dallas from falling under .500 on the road in Baltimore.

Yet, it was the quote from Bryant that piqued my interest after the game. When asked about the decided two-point conversion play in the endzone, instead of owning up to a flubbing an opportunity, Bryant placed the blame on someone other than himself.

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By Eduardo Maisonet, III / @edthesportsfan

When the annual schedule is released, every player and coach has a game they look for on the schedule. For the Oklahoma Sooners and the Texas Longhorns, that game is the second Saturday in October, down in the Cotton Bowl, where the drive from Norman and Austin is virtually equidistant from one another. That game, is the Red River Shootout. (Yes, technically its called the Red River “Rivalry” now, to be politically correct….but, I’m not calling it that. I’m from Oklahoma, its a shootout. Period.)

The storyline behind this game is slightly precarious compared to games past. Usually, one or both teams have national title aspirations coming into the Cotton Bowl clash, as the two have been the kingpins of the Big 12. However, both teams have suffered early season in-conference losses (Oklahoma lost to Kansas State, Texas lost to West Virginia) and the cache has been lost for this game a bit. Therefore, the pressure is actually more intense for both teams. One more conference loss and the opportunity for a conference championship is flushed down the train, a win brings a boost in the rankings and an opportunity to stay on the fringe of conference and national championship glory.

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By Eduardo Maisonet, III / @edthesportsfan

Well, that was another stinker of a game from Cam Newton. Good grief. A 12-of-29 passing performance is the type of stat line we’re used to seeing from quarterbacks like Blaine Gabbert and Mark Sanchez, not the rookie of the year and former Heisman trophy winner from Auburn. This is not the Cam Newton we’d grown accustomed to seeing.

Many pundits and prognosticators will come out on Monday and say that this is Cam Newton’s sophomore slump. Others will say that Cam’s body language, demeanor and how he carries himself and point to it as the reason why Cam and the Carolina Panthers are struggling. The rush to try and identify these problems will be done thoughtfully, but will only skim the surface of what’s underlying the true issues of this team. What are those issues? I’ll tell you.

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