Playoff predictions

Short and sweet predictions, before the postseason starts. Note this is what I think will happen, not what I want to happen.

Divisional series: Yankees, Rangers, Phillies, Brewers
Championship series: Yankees, Brewers
World Series: Brewers

Will post my thoughts on regular season awards sometime this weekend.

What's in a Name? Plenty, When It Comes to NFL Quarterbacks.

Good quarterbacks tend to have good names. Johnny Unitas. Joe Namath. Roger Staubach. There are dozens of examples of all-time great quarterbacks who have names that sound like their bearers were destined to become all-time great quarterbacks. Now, not all of the best quarterbacks have the best names-- someone who doesn’t know who Fran Tarkenton is might hear his name and think he’s a daytime talk show host, for example-- but in general, if you want your son to grow up to become an all-time great quarterback, it would behoove you to give him a strong name.

So what makes a great QB name? Well, they’re usually short and simple, without too many consonants, and they evoke a blue collar work ethic as well as the intelligence you’d expect from a strong leader. Joe Montana might be the best possible example. When George Lucas and Steven Spielberg were coming up with a name for the perfect action hero, they had to settle for Indiana Jones because Joe Montana was already taken. Neither ‘Joe’ nor ‘Montana’ would work quite as well under other circumstances. Imagine if Joe Montana wanted to go by ‘Joseph Montana.’ Would we think of him as one of the greatest QBs to ever live? I’m not so sure. Steven Young just doesn’t have the same ring to it as Steve Young. Dan Marino is a great name, but Joe Marino just doesn’t work quite the same. Before people start accusing me of racial bias when it comes to QB names, I should point out that Donovan McNabb and Warren Moon are both great QB names. Randall Cunningham, on the other hand, sounds like a member of the Nantucket polo club. File Cunningham under the exceptions column with Tarkenton.

Still, Bart Starr, Jim Kelly, Terry Bradshaw, John Elway, the list goes on and on of good QBs with good names. On the other end of the spectrum, when you hear the name Sage Rosenfels or J.P. Losman, and then learn that they’re trying to be quarterbacks in the NFL, you can’t help but think they have an uphill battle. It’s not a perfect predictor, but the correlation between quality of name and quality of quarterback seems pretty strong. Looking at all the currently relevant NFL QBs (starters, and QBs who are normally starters but are currently injured), Sage Rosenfels is not among them, so none of them are completely without hope, and frankly, it’s a pretty solid crop of names. Because I’m the type of person who does pointless things, I put them into groups with ratings from 1 to 10 (1 being Sage Rosenfels, 10 being Joe Montana):

The 1s: Again, no Sage Rosenfels, so this category is empty.

The 2s: Kerry Collins, Kevin Kolb, Ben Roethlisberger-- Not a fan of alliteration in quarterback names. Collins is hurt even more by his first name, and I still have to take a second to remember that ‘Kolb’ is pronounced ‘Cobb,’ not ‘Coalb.’ Roethlisberger is like getting shot in the face with a machine gun that fires consonants. I looked up how to spell ‘Roethlisberger’ twice and it still looks wrong.

The 3s: Rex Grossman, Andy Dalton, Luke McCown-- ‘Andy’ and ‘Luke’ are given names that just do not inspire confidence (Lucas and Andrew would both be better, I think), and Rex Grossman is just... disgusting. Mike Shannahan ought to switch to John Beck as his starter just for the name upgrade.

The 4s: Matt Cassel, Josh Freeman, Kyle Orton, Philip Rivers, Tarvaris Jackson-- I think ‘Josh’ and ‘Kyle’ suffer from the Andy and Luke syndrome, while I think Cassel’s name would rate higher if it were spelled ‘Castle.’ I like ‘Rivers’ as a last name, but Philip is just tough to work with. Even a switch to ‘Phil’ would not help much. Saying the word ‘Tarvaris’ makes you sound like you have a mouthful of marbles. Not exactly what you want from your quarterback’s name.

The 5s: Mark Sanchez, Joe Flacco, Jason Campbell, Chad Henne, Ryan Fitzpatrick-- ‘Sanchez’ has rather unfortunate and inappropriate connotations, and ‘Flacco’ looks like it could have unfortunate and inappropriate connotations. I wanted to rate Fitzpatrick higher because of his performance so far this season, but... consonants. Campbell and Henne are here because... eh, they just don’t do it for me.

The 6s: Eli and Peyton Manning, Colt McCoy-- Some people might disagree with me putting these names so low, and I’ll admit that they are pretty solid, but to me they’re just on the wrong side of cowboy cliche to vault into the upper echelons.

The 7s: Matt Ryan, Matt Hasselbeck, Matthew Stafford-- See what I did there? In Hasselbeck’s case, he’s just got too many consonants to put him up higher, while ‘Ryan’ just doesn’t fit with Matt as well as it could. I think Mark Ryan would be much better. Matthew Stafford, on the other hand, would benefit greatly from a switch to Matt Stafford. That would vault him at least into the next group, occupied by another Matt...

The 8s: Matt Schaub, Tony Romo, Jay Cutler, Drew Brees, Aaron Rodgers, Michael Vick: ‘Cutler’ evokes a nice cut of beef, like prime rib. The rest are just sturdy, strong names. The story of Vick’s name is interesting. In college, he went by Michael, but when he got to the pros wanted everyone to start calling him ‘Mike’. Now the consensus seems to have settled back on Michael. I don’t know whether it was his choice or people just decided, “You know, Mike Vick sounds kind of stupid, we’re gonna stick with Michael.” Either way, an excellent choice to switch back.

The 9s: Donovan McNabb, Cam Newton, Sam Bradford-- These are tough to top. I already mentioned McNabb, and I have high hopes for Cam Newton and Sam Bradford based on their names alone. It’s still early in their respective careers, but so far this season, they appear to be headed for QB greatness, and their names might have something to do with that. Just pure excellence. That leaves us with just one level to go, and really, we all knew from the start only one man could occupy the top tier, only one quarterback currently in the league has a name that can compare to Joe Montana...

The 10: Tom Brady-- really there’s not much to say. Just the perfect combination of surname and given name. It’s as if Jesus Christ and Albert Einstein got together and came up with the perfect QB name, and then descended from the heavens and imparted this name onto Brady’s parents because they got bored up in heaven with the Trent Dilfers and the Kent Grahams of the world and wanted to create the greatest possible NFL quarterback. They knew that when it comes to quarterbacks, names matter.