Party like Gronk? Fine by me

Ok, this dustup -- fueled by ESPN's flogging and Rodney Harrison's flaming -- regarding the appropriateness of Rob Gronkowski partying like a fool after New England’s Super Bowl loss: enough already.

First, it’s awesome that cell-phone video footage is once again the surveillance tool of choice. Just awesome. Love the appropriateness of that these days.

Secondly, had Gronkowski partied like a fool inside the Patriots locker room, then we might have something to talk about. That’s where the power of the big defeat upon psyches and emotions should be felt and contemplated in traditional somber tones.

Blowing off steam later at a party, the team-sponsored party? It’s something entirely different, something perfectly fine and something ridiculous for the ex-Patriot Harrison or anybody else to fuss over.

On to the next 24/7 news-cycle chum of  "scandal." Cell cameras ready?

Super guesstimation time: Giants win

My preseason Super Bowl pick was the Patriots over the Packers. Green Bay didn’t make the game. New England did. Yet I’m jumping ship from Tom Brady and the Pats, which seems contrary to my belief in the quarterback, his array of weapons and the coach, Bill Belichick.

Yes, it’s hard to beat a good team twice in the NFL, which the New York Giants will have to do to win Sunday night. The Giants beat New England on Nov. 6, which was the last time the 15-3 Patriots lost. New York has won three playoff games after a 9-7 regular season, and we know no 9-7 team has ever won the Super Bowl.

But – and I admit I could be overselling this in my mind – I think the injury to New England’s tight end Rob Gronkowski is a really big thing. Enough so that it’s swayed me. Again, that seems to underestimate the danger of Brady still throwing – and quickly of course, out of respect for the Giants’ pass rush -- to Wes Welker and the “other” tight end Aaron Hernandez, who’s as much or more of a beast as Gronkowski. But I can’t see Gronkowski being effective at all playing with a high-ankle sprain. That’s a brutal injury. He’ll be easier to cover and serve mostly as a decoy.

That’ll be a difference-maker. So will, collectively, the main men in the Giants receiving corps – Victor Cruz, Hakeem Nicks and Mario Manningham – working against the iffy Patriots secondary.

Without turnover weirdness, which skews any game any week, and straight up -- not considering the Vegas spread -- I got Giants 31, Patriots 27.

Burress might be a Giant (again) yet

A report on ESPN.com/NewYork has Giants running back Brandon Jacobs suggesting that Virginia Beach’s Plaxico Burress would have preferred to return to the Giants this season, and that he could still next season.

Burress, a veteran receiver, took his best available offer when he got out of prison after two years away from the NFL on a gun charge -- a one-year deal for $3 million guaranteed from the New York Jets. The Giants guaranteed $1 million. But Jacobs, Burress’ good friend, said at Super Bowl media day that Burress, a free agent, likely won’t return to a Jets locker room that ended the season in upheaval.

"I don't see him back with the Jets next year at all," Jacobs said. "I don't know what he's thinking, but I don't see that. They've got a lot of things going on over there, and I don't know if he wants to be part of that.”

Jacobs also said, "I know he wanted to come to the Giants. We just didn't think it was going to be able to be done financially. But . . . next year, who knows?"

And yet, as the ESPN.com report notes, Burress disparaged the Giants, specifically quarterback Eli Manning and coach Tom Coughlin, in a magazine article published last September. So did he really want to be with them or not? In any event, Burress only caught 45 balls for 612 yards and eight touchdowns with the Jets, by far the fewest catches in his career for a full 16-game season.

In an apparent swipe at embattled Jets quarterback Mark Sanchez, Jacobs said he didn’t think Burress’ low productivity “had anything to do with him. . . . He’s a much better wide receiver than (45) catches, I tell you that.”

UFL's Mayer: You gotta believe

As my story noted today, the United Football League plans to move on without commissioner Michael Huyghue, who has resigned. And that Bill Mayer, the UFL director who funds the locally popular Virginia Destroyers, said the league will play again in the fall with four teams if it must, although it would like to have at least five.

I asked Mayer why he and the other league directors were still bothering, in the face of relentless, reputation-damning debts hastened by mismanagement at the executive level and the lack of television money or financial link to the NFL. Mayer echoed the answer he gave last summer when he took over the Virginia team once his Hartford team shuttered. And that answer is that he simply believes.

“In any business you’ve got to look at the product,” Mayer said. “I don’t think anybody is going to argue that we have a good product. It’s a good football product, and I have been told repeatedly better than most people expected.

“And so if you’ve got a good product, then you’ve got to say, ‘Who’s gonna buy it?’ And there are so many metro areas in the country that are never gonna get an NFL team . . . and that can certainly support a good product.”

Now, Mayer conceded the hardship of a start-up business being run poorly from up top, which is what brought about Huyghue’s departure. The owners had already removed business decisions from Huyghue’s plate a few months ago to focus on more localized decision-making and spending in each franchise city.

“One of the mistakes we made was sizing the cost” of producing a good product, Mayer said. “We underestimated the difficulty in getting the revenue stream built, and part of that was because of the central control in Florida.”

As an example, Mayer said he is trying to get out of the lease, negotiated by the UFL, for the office the Destroyers rent at Town Center. Mayer said it is far too much space than he needs and much more expensive than he needs to pay. He said he’d still like to have an office presence, but one closer to the team’s playing base, the Virginia Beach Sportsplex.

Bizarre hoops at Norfolk State

Through a meandering college basketball season, most games and their details run into one another. Not true of Norfolk State’s 87-82 loss to Coppin State that I witnessed Monday night.

It was too weird to just casually blend in to any pack.

The MEAC-leading Spartans, who hadn’t lost a conference game, missed their first 18 shots from the floor. Eighteen shots! NSU earned that drought, too; most attempts were perimeter jumpers over Coppin’s confusing zone, many looked just plain awkward leaving the shooter’s hand, and a couple long ones drew no iron at all.

Finally, a 3-pointer by Pendarvis Williams with 8:40 left in the half ended the skid – and made the score 17-4. That became a 35-13 halftime deficit as top scorer Kyle O’Quinn was scoreless on only two shots and the Spartans made only 4 of 27 attempts.

And yet . . .

To go bucketless for more than 11 minutes and be down only 22 points at home fed the suspicion that the Spartans, taller and appearing more athletic than Coppin, were in no way out of the game. And they weren’t, of course, which they proved by scoring 69 points in the second half. Sixty-nine. Come on, man.

O’Quinn went off for 27 points after the break. Three-point ace Chris McEachin, also scoreless in the first half, tossed in five treys and 17 points in the second half. With less than 14 minutes to go, Coppin’s lead was still its halftime cushion of 22, 52-30.

All the Spartans, relentlessly pressing and trapping, did was score 52 points in 13 minutes and change, which was silly, and creep to within six with 2:30 left.

Good free-throwing shooting by the visitors in the final minutes helped them beat back NSU, barely, and end an bizarrely entertaining night for the audience, if not the shocked home team. A team that on the frustrating evening was slapped with three technical fouls that yielded five points – Coppin State’s eventual margin of very strange victory.

'All Americans" by the score

Perhaps, and just maybe, the flow of FCS postseason football "All American" awards is tapped out. Finally.

But for about six weeks after Old Dominion ended its season, up until last week, random college football publications and websites took pains to proclaim their very own All American teams, some four rosters deep, which I’m not sure the point of that at all.

Oh, I know why ODU's football information director Kim Zivkovich dutifully produced an email blast each time an American Football Coaches Association, College Football Performance Awards or something called College Sports Madness issued a roster of honorees that included ODU’s usual suspects, defensive lineman Ronnie Cameron, punter Jonathan Plisco and quarterback Taylor Heinicke. It’s ODU’s name in circulation, such as it is, and an “award” to be placed on the football team's news archive. Gotta shout that out.

But if you can tell your College Sports Journal from your Phil Steele from your Associated Press from your Sports Network, you really might need to get out more, especially because, for the most part, the awards-issuers pretty much just shuffle around the exact same names among their top two, or four, teams.

Then again, one indecisive blog just skipped the formalities of dilineating subsets for its “All America” team and bunched 30 names on offense, 27 on defense, five on special teams – and then for good measure, I guess, tossed onto the pile the lofty praise of a 67-player (!!) “honorable mention” list.

Which, you know, I’m really not sure the point of that at all.

Party like it's 2007?

Missed only on the San Francisco 49ers beating the New Orleans Saints last week in my little NFL postseason blog picks. I like the 49ers, but I wondered aloud how they would ever slow down, let alone stop, Drew Brees. Five turnovers later I had my answer.

Here’s my next (guesstimated) answer regarding Sunday's conference title games: a Northeast Corridor Super Bowl emerging between a team from the general New York area vs. a team from the general Boston area, as they did to memorably cap the 2007 season.

AFC Championship 3 p.m.

New England wins at home over Baltimore: The Patriots (14-3) haven’t lost since a 24-20 defeat on Nov. 6 to the New York Giants – whom they’ll meet for the NFL championship. Granted, New England’s battered defense has been hanging on through, if not smoke and mirrors, grit and ingenuity, with a welcome dash of ineffective Tim Tebow last week. Baltimore’s Joe Flacco won’t face anywhere near the kind of pressure Houston applied last week – he was sacked five times – and images of successful play-action with Ray Rice tempt me to want to pick the Ravens (13-4). Also, last week’s games suggest the stronger defense is still the way to lean in the postseason. And yet, based simply on their history, I suspect Belichick and Brady et al will figure out a way to prevail, barely, at home to reach Indianapolis.

NFC Championship 6:30 p.m.

New York wins at San Francisco: Yes, the Giants (11-7) have already lost at San Francisco, 27-20, in mid-November. Yes, the 49ers (14-3) coming off that scintillating 36-32 shootout over the high-flying Saints, are playing with as much or more confidence than the resurgent Giants. Still, I’m going with Eli Manning and the torrid Giants, who haven’t trailed in the second half of a game since the Redskins beat them a month ago. This should be a huge battle of will, fueled by machismo and momentum. The 49ers led the league in turnover differential in the regular season, plus-28, and took five footballs from the Saints. That’s usually a most-telling stat, and the Giants – seventh in the league – aren’t bad at it either. But with these evenly matched, rough-tough teams – and assuming no repeat of the turnover-fest San Francisco forced from New Orleans -- I’ll put it on the better quarterback, Manning over Alex Smith, to pull it out.

Wright wants to stay, help Mets reverse course

Schmoozing with admirers Thursday night before the Chesapeake Sports Club’s first jamboree, David Wright, a popular subject of trade speculation in the New York media, repeated his desire to stay with the struggling Mets.

The club hasn’t contended in the NL East for three years and last won the division in 2006. But Chesapeake’s Wright, 29, who’s been in the majors since 2004, said, “It’s well-documented I’ve loved my time in New York. I want to be there to see things get better.”

Granted, Wright said it’s been “ugly” lately for the Mets, whose ownership is burdened with financial difficulties related to the Bernie Madoff scandal. On the field was no party for Wright last year, either. He missed two months with a stress fracture in his back and batted only .254, a historic low for the career .300 hitter, with 14 home run in 102 games.

“It’s my character; I want to see things through, where we have those good times we had a few years ago and we get to where we get good again,” Wright said. “But that’s out of my hands. I’m under contract for this year and I have a team option for next year, so the ball’s in the Mets’ court.”

Wright also said he hoped to see his friend Michael Cuddyer, who was advertised by the sports club as an “expected” guest although he did not attend, at his “Vegas Night” charity event Friday at the Virginia Beach Convention Center.

Wright said he was an especially interested observer as Cuddyer shopped himself this winter on the free-agent market. Cuddyer wound up leaving the Minnesota Twins and signing with the Colorado Rockies.

“I’ve never experienced free agency, so I kind of lived vicariously through him,” Wright said. “I was texting him every day; what’s new, what teams have called? I enjoyed kind of following it through him. And I know he’s happy, going to a great organization I’ve got a lot of respect for, with a lot of young talent.”

Perry figures to figure in Raiders speculation

Expect the name of Darren Perry, the Green Bay Packers secondary coach from Chesapeake, to surface frequently over the next few weeks in the Oakland Raiders coaching search.

New Raiders general manager Reggie McKenzie, who had been the Packers director of football operations, fired Raiders coach Hue Jackson this week, which naturally turns eyes to Green Bay’s staff for a possible replacement.

And because the Raiders defense ranked 29th in the NFL this season, media speculation has McKenzie focusing his search on defensive-minded coaches -- Perry and Winston Moss, Green Bay’s assistant head coach/inside linebackers coach, to name two.

McKenzie, who when firing Jackson said he wanted his own man as head coach, dropped a hint about his direction when he said previous head-coaching experience wasn’t a necessity for his hire. That’s good for Perry, a former NFL defensive back who has yet to be even a defensive coordinator. Nor has Moss, for that matter.

Both men also have ties to the Raiders, who are now run by Mark Davis, son of the late owner Al Davis; Moss played for them in the ‘90s and Perry coached for them in 2007-08.

Perhaps a little problematic, though, is Green Bay’s defense, despite the team’s 15-1 regular-season record, is statistically the league’s worst. And that’s a stunning plunge from the last two seasons when the Packers defense, including the pass defense, was a top-five unit.

Perry has coached in the NFL for 10 seasons with Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Oakland and Green Bay.

Schottenheimer "enjoys" talk with Tampa Bay

A report in today's Tampa Bay Times said Marty Schottenheimer had what he called “an enjoyable dialogue”  when he met with Tampa Bay Buccaneers officials Tuesday in Naples, Fla.

Schottenheimer, 68, who coached the Virginia Destroyers in the United Football League last fall, interviewed to become head coach of the Bucs. The report said both sides committed to further discussions.

The report also quoted Terry Shea, Schottenheimer’s offensive coordinator with the Destroyers, as to why his boss would still be an effective NFL leader even after six seasons away from the league.

“He’s a very demonstrative figure,” Shea said. “He stands up, he’s got the stature, he’s got the strong voice and history, (a) track record of winning. All of that plays into his presentation and how well he’s received. What he does bring to a football organization, he brings integrity, a no-nonsense approach in terms of how he handles discipline and he holds every person within the organization he’s dealing with accountable.”

Interestingly, if Schottenheimer gets the job he would likely re-unite with his son Brian, who worked on the elder’s staff in Kansas City, Washington and San Diego. Brian has been offensive coordinator for the New York Jets for six seasons, but he was replaced Tuesday by former Miami Dolphins coach Tony Sparano.