The Lightning Round -- Weekend Wrap Up

Wow. This was a busy weekend, both from a blog posting perspective, and from a real-life perspective. An engagement party. Two football games (and two victories). Seeing a movie for the first time in ages. And watching quite a bit of television as season premiere week continues. So, in case you missed it, here's a rundown of the posts from the past three days.

On Saturday, I wrote about the season premiere of the fifth season of Las Vegas which wrapped up the storylines of the characters of Nikki Cox and James Caan and introduced us to new casino owner Tom Selleck. It was pretty good, though I will miss Caan.

I also watched and wrote about Michigan's struggle to beat Northwestern on Saturday. And the more I think about it, the more similar Michigan and the Detroit Lions are. Good offenses, poor defenses, and both games Sunday were flipped, with the defense holding the team in despite poor offensive performances, only for the teams to wake up in the second half and win by double-digits.

Saturday night I ventured out to the movie theater (for the first time since watching Fracture during the spring) and watched and reviewed The Kingdom. I'm partial to anything staring Jennifer Garner, and after not being such a big fan of other, Middle Eastern/Current Event films (like Jarhead and Syriana) I was a big fan of The Kingdom. Poignant, powerful, action-packed and exciting. Even the humor worked. It's getting mixed-reviews (at best) and it was beaten out by The Rock's kids movie at the box office this week, but do yourself a favor and check out this movie. It's worth it.

Then Sunday was sports day. The Detroit Tigers wrapped up their season with a win and Magglio Ordonez won the batting title, Curtis Granderson put a bow on his amazing season by pushing his batting average over .300, Placido Polanco got his 200th hit of the year, and Carlos Guillen knocked home RBI 100. And Pudge Rodiguez may have played his last game as a Tiger. I had some quick thoughts on that too.

And then, finally, the Detroit Lions set an NFL record by scoring 34 fourth quarter points to defeat the Chicago Bears and improve to 3-1 on the season. The Lions are not an elite team, by far, but they are tough, and show a lot of heart, and after being nowhere for three quarters, they scored five touchdowns in the final fifteen minutes to stage a come from behind victory.

And with that, time to get some work done before Shark starts at 10:00 and Lions wrap-ups begin on the local news at 11:30. And Ebert and Roper review The Kingdom, and more, at 12:30. The weekend never stops.

Detroit Lions Use Historic Fourth Quarter to Defeat Chicago

For three quarters, it seemed like the same story we had seen before. A Detroit Lions team failing to move the ball, at all. A costly redzone turnover. An offense failing to take advantage of a stiff defense giving them every opportunity to take the game by the throat. It was 13-3, Chicago Bears leading. The Bears, starting their backup quarterback, the Bears, without seven starters on defense, The Bears, 1-2, leading by 10, on the road. Mike Martz' innovative offense was oddly stagnant, as was the crowd, which was silent, all except the thousands of Bears fans, who had temporarily taken over Ford Field.

Then, suddenly, everything turned. Shaun McDonald scored. Then Keith Smith had an interception return for a touchdown (making up for one he had in his hands last year and dropped) and suddenly, in less than three minutes of game time, the Lions went from trailing 13-3 to leading 17-13. Ford Field was rocking. The Lions seemed to have everything under control. Then Devin Hester returned a kickoff for a touchdown, Chicago had the lead again, and all looked bleak.

There was a lot to be unhappy about as a Lions fan Sunday. The offense, which was the one saving grace for the Lions the first three weeks, reverted to a shell of itself for the the first thee quarters. The offensive line, after giving up nine sacks last week, surrendered six on Sunday. And while I was thrilled to see Mike Martz try to establish the run, after all but ignoring it the first part of the season, it wasn't working early, and too many series the Lions tried running on first and second downs instead of opening up their offense to take advantage of Chicago's decimated secondary. All of this was running through my head as the Bears re-took the lead in the fourth quarter.

But, then, something strange happened. The Lions didn't fold. After Hester's return, the Lions roared back, and 5 plays, 80 yards, and only 2:51 later, Troy Walters caught a beutiful ball form quarterback Jon Knita, dragged his feet in the corner of the endzone, and the Lions had the lead, again. And this time, for good.

The Lions then did something they have never really done before. They stopped Chicago three-and-out, then took over on a game-clinching, time-consuming, fourth-quarter touchdown drive. So often I have seen other teams ice games against the Lions on long drives where our defense could never come up with a stop. This time, it was Detroit on an 8 play, 62 yard drive chewing up over 5:00 of the clock. And with that, the game was over.

There were some exciting and frustrating moments to go (like Chicago's non-fumble, then touchdown, and then Casey Fitzsimmons running the onside kick attempt back for a score) but the Lions were 3-1. I don't want to get too ahead of myself, because after three quarters, I was ready to declare the season over in this blog entry, but the team continues to show heart, and continues to show they are a fighting team. Not many teams, after being held to 3 points in three quarters, would respond with 34 points and five touchdowns in the game's final 15 minutes. But the Lions did, and for this week at least, they deserve the bask in the adulation of victory.

And the Detroit Tigers Had a Good Day Too; Plus: Pudge Done?

While a lot of the attention around Detroit is on the Detroit Lions victory over the Chicago bears, and the attention around baseball is focused on the historic collapse of the New York Mets (sorry Willy, Seth, and Alan, but congrats to Ben Wanger's Philadelphia Phillies) the Detroit Tigers finished their 2007 season today and despite not making the playoffs, and suffering through both a second-half slump and a rash of injuries, the season ended on a very positive note. Not only did the Tigers win their final game of the season (13-3 over the Chicago White Sox) but it was a banner day for a few individuals on the Tigers team.

Magglio Ordonez capped an incredible and MVP-worthy season by going 3 for 4 and winning the American League batting championship with a .363 average. It beats Norm Cash's amazing .361 season in 1961, and there isn't enough you can say about the season Magglio had. Neither can Curtis Granderson's season be properly praised. He finished his season with a 3-4 day, moving his batting average for the season over .300 (.302 to be exact) which is the holy line of demarcation in baseball, separating the men from the boys. He also added three more steals, giving him not only a .302 average, but 38 doubles, 23 home runs, 23 triples, 26 stolen bases, and 122 runs (3rd in the American League). He also knocked in 74 runs from the leadoff spot and played Gold Glove caliber centerfield. It will get completely overlooked, but it is not an exaggeration to say Granderson's year was one of the best all-around seasons in baseball history.

A few other Tigers hit milestones too, as Placido Polanco pushed his average above .340 (.341) and knocked through his 200th hit of the season. And Carlos Guillen had his 100th RBI of the season.

With such great individual seasons, it's really a shame the team's season has ended. But, the Tigers have a lot to be proud of this season. They fought through a lot of adversity, and individually, had some incredible seasons. Next year, though, it will be the team that hopefully is celebrating in October.

9:30 Update: Reading Kurt's great wrap-up of the Tigers season at Mack Avenue Tigers he noticed that Danny Knobler is reporting that Pudge Rodriguez has likely played his last game as a Tiger as the team is not expected to pick up his $13 million option for 2008. This stuns me, and I'll have more thoughts when it becomes official, but I think it's a big mistake. Yes, $13 million is overpaying Pudge, significantly. But there are no other options, no other good catchers available (at least not without a trade). And it's really only $10 million, because Pudge gets a $3 million buy-out regardless. Is Pudge the player he used to be? No. But he's still solid, he's great defensively (and still scares opposing runners even if he doesn't have a great arm anymore), and he's the best option the Tigers have. Especially when they have a huge void at shortstop, left-field, perhaps two spots in the starting pitching rotation, and perhaps closer to fill. Now we have to add catcher to the list. That's one too many holes for a team that's this close to being an elite team and making it back to the World Series. Maybe GM Dave Dombrowski will surprise me and acquire a solid replacement for Pudge, but at least right now, considering the other spots we have to fix on our roster, Pudge may not have been a superstar, but he was solid, which is a lot more than we can say about the position right now.

What I'm Watching -- The Kingdom

I don't watch a lot of movies in the theater. DVDs, sure. But, even movies I see previews for, and think "Hey, that would be fun to go watch" I usually don't, for whatever reason. But, when I first heard the premise for The Kingdom, about a group of FBI agents investigating a terrorist bombing in Saudi Arabia, I knew I wanted to see it in theater. Maybe it was Jennifer Garner. Probably. Closest to Syndey Bristow she's played in the movies, and The Kingdom was directed by Peter Berg, who coincidentally guest starred on Garner's television show, Alias. Berg put a lot of people he knew and worked with before into the movie. Early on, I was struck by how attractive a school-teacher was in an early scene with Jamie Foxx's character, I was later unsurprised to find out she was played by Minka Kelly, who plays a cheerleader on the television show Friday Night Lights, which Berg helped bring to the small-screen after he directed the feature film version. Berg's real-life agent is Ari Emanuel, who is the inspiration behind Jeremy Piven's character on Entourage. Piven appears in the movie in a great role as a slimy State Department official. Even Kyle Chandler stops by for a cameo (Chandler plays the head coach on Friday Night Lights).

Seeing Jamie Foxx in a movie set in the Middle East though, that gave me pause. I saw Jarhead in the theater was was bored out of my mind. I also saw Syriana, and thought it was just fair. So, my history with movies set in the present-day Middle East, not so good. But, despite that history, and despite mediocre reviews, I thought The Kingdom was great, and I would highly recommend it.

The cast is top notch. Garner and Foxx are joined by the underrated and always solid Chris Cooper (who was phenomenal in Breach, a movie I always wanted to see and just saw a few weeks back), Jason Bateman, and Jeremy Piven. I tend to like Berg's movies (Friday Night Lights and The Rundown to name two) and I thought The Kingdom was the best of the three. It was powerful, suspenseful, had some great action, and the light-comedy contained in the movie was well placed and provided a breather in between bombings and shootouts. The acting was great, as was the overall story, and I really don't understand the negative reviews. The last scene, especially, was almost chilling. This is a great film, one of the best I have seen in a while.