ON THE MARK.

HAPPY NEW YEAR.  IT'S BLACK MONDAY.
You know when you hear of someone losing their job around Christmas time?  It's a real bummer.  I mean, you really feel for someone at this time of the year.   Except for NFL coaches.  Today is known as Black Monday.  It's the day AFTER the regular season has ended, and it's a sure bet that a bunch of coaches whose teams didn't make the playoffs are headed to the unemployment line.  Most firings were expected, some were not.
      For example, even though the Chicago Bears won their final two games to finish 10-6 on the season, they fired head coach Lovie Smith.  Tell me the last coach to win 10 games in a season and then get fired.  I can't think of one.   In Buffalo, Chan Gailey got the pink slip.  Same for Romeo Crennell in KC.  Cleveland bounced coach Pat Shurmur and GM Tom Heckert.  In San Diego, coach Norv Turner and GM A.J. Smith lost their jobs.  Ditto for Arizona, who bounced coach Ken Wisenhunt and GM Rod Graves.  After 14 years with the Philadelphia Eagles, Andy Reid could not escape the executioner.  In New York, the Jets fired GM Mike Tannenbaum but kept coach Rex Ryan.   In Jacksonville, the Jags blew out GM Gene Smith, but retained coach Mike Mullarkey.    That's seven head coaches and five GMs out the door.  Black Monday indeed.  I look for Andy Reid to catch on quickly because there are now 7 coaching vacancies.   Reid would be great in either Buffalo or Cleveland.  I'd love to see him in Buffalo, especially if the Bills can get Kirk Cousins from Washington or Alex Smith from San Francisco to replace the ineffective Ryan Fitzpatrick
     Meanwhile, yesterdays action in the NFL was fabulous, except for the fact that the TV networks continue to assault us with shots of the team owners up in their private suites.  Listen to me:  We don't care what the billionaires are doing!!   Enough with the shots of Cowboys owner Jerry Jones and Redskins owner Daniel Snyder.  They're a couple of egomaniacs who don't deserve the screen time.   Show me a couple of cheerleaders.  Show me some drunken fans dressed up in goofy costumes.  Show me anything BUT the team owners.  Especially when you've got a dandy of a game like they had in Washington.  And since I picked the Skins to beat the Cowboys on TV on Friday, I'm feeling pretty good today although the Bears got knocked out of the playoffs when Minnesota beat Green Bay in a thriller.  Those last second field goals are always killers.  I'll make my playoff predictions later in the week.
     Hey, how about those Toronto Raptors?  They were 4-19 a few weeks ago and now they're 11-20, having won 7 or their last 8.  Playoffs?  Playoffs?  This team is finally playing like a TEAM.  They're passing the ball around, rather than feeding Andrea Bargnani for his occasional 3-ball.  Oh, and by the way, you can get rid of Bargs anytime now.  He doesn't deserve any minutes on this team when he comes back.  With Lowry, Calderon, Amir, Ed Davis, Terrence Ross, DeRozan, Landry Fields, Kleiza, Allan Anderson and even Aaron Gray, the Raps are fairly small in stature but big when it comes to fight.   They don't play out of the Eastern time zone for the next two months, so we might see the team turn a corner in January and February.  Won't that be nice?
     And on this New Years Eve, I am picturing Gary Bettman and Donald Fehr walking hand in hand through Times Square with an agreement in principle to start the season in mid January.  In fact, as the ball drops to ring in the New Year, the two sides will embrace and then raise a glass of cheer.   Here's to 2013.   May it be your best year EVER.