Seattle Sportsnet

Ryan Perkins is the pseudo-placekicker for the Washington Huskies football team. He’s also the devil. In stunning fashion, Ryan Perkins has managed to ruin the few potentially joyous moments in this past Husky season by failing to do his one and only job.

First there was the infamous BYU “excessive celebration” game. A phantom penalty by Jake Locker near the end of regulation turned a chip-shot PAT into a 35-yard point-after instead. This, of course, pushed Perkins out of his 25-yards-or-less comfort zone and resulted in a blocked kick and a BYU victory.

Today, Perkins was at it again. With an 0-10 Husky team faced with the prospect of winning their first game, the 101st Apple Cup no less, Perkins missed not one, but two huge field goals that would have been difference-makers. With just over 3:00 minutes remaining in the fourth quarter, Perkins missed a 28-yard gimme that would have put the Dawgs up by six. Instead, with 56 seconds remaining in regulation, the Cougars were able to drive down the field and connect on a field goal of their own to tie the score at 10 and send the game to overtime.

Then, in the second overtime, with a chance to take a three-point lead and pressure the Cougs to convert on their ensuing possession, Perkins shanked yet another kick, this time from 37 yards out to all but seal the Husky loss.

After eleven of twelve games so far, Perkins is 7-11 on field goal tries and 15-16 on PAT’s. The 64% field goal conversion rate is bad, but made worse when you consider that Perkins hasn’t attempted a kick beyond 40 yards. That distinction is left up to distance kicker/kickoff specialist/punter Jared Ballman. Perkins has put up a “D” average inside what should be automatic range. Kickers are already one-trick ponies, so what does this make Ryan Perkins? A half-trick pony?

The numbers won’t likely show Perkins to have been a horrible kicker throughout his career, but when all factors are taken into account (no attempts beyond 40 yards, kicking on an artificial surface, the “clutch” factor, etc) he will have to be remembered as one of the worst full-time kicking specialists in Husky history, if not NCAA history. Of his five total misses (4 FG’s, 1 PAT), three have been at critical moments in the fourth quarter or overtime, in what ultimately proved to be game-deciding situations. He hasn’t just been inaccurate, he’s been inaccurate at the most inopportune times.

As if anyone cares, Perkins announced his retirement from football earlier this year, effective at season’s end. A debilitated knee has forced him to give up his trade, but were that knee not a problem, I know thousands of fans who would gladly help Perkins to the sidelines.

Besides the football aspect, there’s a level of ethics involved here, as well. Perkins was able to parlay his high school kicking ability into four years of free education. While his peers were paying thousands of dollars each quarter for the privilege to attend a four-year university, Perkins was sliding buy on scholarship money that one could argue he didn’t earn.

Ryan Perkins has been simply awful. I don’t doubt that’s he’s trying his hardest, nor that he’s truly a good person underneath that jersey, but when it comes to kicking footballs, Perkins is the walking definition of “failure.” He has put the rotten cherry on top of the poop sundae that is the Huskies miserable season, and in the process ripped out the hearts of loyal Husky fans all around the country. All I can say is good riddance to our lost season, and God forbid a kicker like Ryan Perkins ever set foot on Montlake again.

Our second installment of the week’s five most powerful individuals. Enjoy.

5. Michigan football fans. Nearly a year ago you managed to persuade the administration to go out and get West Virginia head coach Rich Rodriguez and bring him to Ann Arbor. Now, 11 months later, you’ve managed to effectively punch Rodriguez’s ticket out of town by provoking him with personal attacks. When asked how he felt about the intense online scrutiny he’d been receiving in blogs and on message boards, Rodriguez responded by telling Michigan fans to”get a life.”

Bad move, Rich. It’d be one thing if a) you were playing at a smaller school b) you weren’t making a ridiculous amount of money c) the Rich Rodriguez era hadn’t kicked off with a $4 million settlement between your current and former employer d) you were winning e) you were improving f) you hadn’t sent your most talented players to other schools on transfers g) you had a quarterback who was, you know, good h) you weren’t a little shady to begin with i) you actually looked like a guy with the last name “Rodriguez,” but no, it’s none of those things, and we’re only halfway through the alphabet.

Of course, Rodriguez is only in his first year, so he still has a decent chance at finding success. But things are looking fairly grim and he’ll have to deal with a large group of powerful, impatient, victory-starved fans in the process. I’d say Rich Rodriguez’s days in the Big House are all but numbered.

4) Donnie Walsh. Despite his resemblance to a dead guy, Walsh, in his first year as president of basketball operations for the New York Knicks, managed to unload two of the team’s biggest headaches in separate deals when he traded forward Zach Randolph and guard Jamal Crawford on Friday. This can essentially be equated to getting all the women and children off the sinking Titanic: it may not fix the entire problem, but it’s a decent start.

Walsh kicked off the whirlwind day by sending the underachieving Crawford off to the Golden State Warriors in exchange for talented forward Al Harrington. Harrington became an expendable part for the Warriors when he fell out of favor with head coach Don Nelson and found his way to the bench. A good deal for both sides, as each player should thrive in his new environment.

Next, Walsh managed to find a taker for Randolph’s fat ass and contract by packaging him with the epitome of an unwise decision in Mardy Collins (unwise in that he was a 2006 first-round draft pick of the Knicks, when his value equates to that of an undrafted free agent). Like trout to metallic spinners, the Los Angeles Clippers were the ones to foolishly bite on an inanimate object when they opted to take the chance on Randolph and his salary. Perhaps they were seduced by the one-time first-round pick Collins, or more likely, maybe they were hoping to get rid of expiring food from the team kitchen. In any event, they didn’t give up much in the gamble, sending the most rapidly aging man in the world (Tim Thomas), and the number one guy you wouldn’t expect to be starting for an NBA team but in fact is (Cuttino Mobley) to play in Madison Square Garden.

Walsh has a good shot at working himself up to the top of this list next week if he can just find a solution to the whole Eddy Curry-Stephon Marbury-Jerome James-Jared Jeffries-Quentin Richardson-Malik Rose problem.

3. Roger Goodell. The commissioner of the NFL can seemingly ban and reinstate players in his sleep. This week, he chose to reinstate oft-banned Cowboys cornerback Adam Jones. Not that you’ll hear any complaining from Jones after this turn of events, but it seems like these days if you so much as appear in public off the gridiron, Goodell will be watching you.

Seriously, tabloids can’t even cover NFL players anymore. The last thing I can remember making major headlines is the whole Tom Brady boot incident in the weeks leading up to the Superbowl last year, and that was way back in January.

I guess we can say that Goodell is doing a good job cleaning up the league, but it’s almost overkill at this point. The NFL is starting to lose its bad-boy edge and is beginning to gain a Bill Belichick-esque shroud of eerie mystique instead. I don’t like it. I can understand trying to rid the game of repeat offenders and guys that really don’t get it, but Goodell has an unlimited standard for what qualifies as grounds for suspension. Amongst the group of very insecure individuals that NFL players truly are, the one thing not needed is one more thing to fear.

2. Barack Obama. The whole eight-team playoff idea is getting out of hand. There’s a good chance that Obama could have based his entire campaign off of bringing down the BCS and probably still won. If you’re part of the BCS, you have to be a little nervous at this point. As former steroid users can attest, the combination of sports and politics is a caustic one with far-reaching repercussions. Can we take down the BCS? Yes we can!

In modern history there has never been a president (president-elect, in this case) with such a distinct tie to sports. Ok, so George W. Bush used to own the Texas Rangers, and a few ex-presidents were college athletes, but beyond that sports talk hasn’t been able to penetrate the White House walls. Obama, meanwhile, is a former high school basketball player that still plays pickup; has a brother-in-law coaching a major Division-I men’s basketball team; is an avid Chicago White Sox fan; has a fantasy football team; and not only knows what the BCS is, but wants to defeat it like the third-cousin of Osama Bin Laden. To top it off, he continued his “Sports in ’08″ tour this week by pitching the idea of a 2016 Chicago Olympiad to the IOC. He’s an all-around sports nut.

*On a loosely related side note, I have this idea for an Irish pub called O’Bama’s. I think it could do real well. It’s a catchy name. Just picture that header with a clover inside the ‘O.’ It’s perfect.

1. Shaquille O’Neal. Shaq showed just how powerful he is this week by knocking everyone down that crossed his path. He kicked off the festivities by assisting teammates Matt Barnes and Steve Nash in a game of push-n-shove with the Houston Rockets, toppling Yao Ming and Tracy McGrady in a made-for-YouTube moment last week. Then earlier this week, the Diesel went tractor-trailer on Pistons guard Rodney Stuckey, using his flying mass to send Stuckey to the hardwood.

There are really no words to fully explain the development of the actions, so CLICK HERE to see the pushing video, and CLICK HERE for the Stuckey video. Enjoy.

PJ Carlesimo, head coach of the Oklahoma City Thunder, was fired following the team’s 105-80 loss on Friday night to the New Orleans Hornets. The loss was the tenth straight for OKC, who is now 1-12 on the season.

Suffice it to say that Carlesimo choked as Sonics/Thunder coach. He can best be described as a fiery guy who hates everyone he works with. He never stops yelling, rarely lets up on the cussing, and has yet to make a friend out of any of his players in nearly two decades of NBA coaching. Carlesimo, like Nick Saban and Steve Spurrier in the NFL, is the epitome of a successful college coach that hasn’t been able to cut it in the pros.

When he wasn’t being choked out by one of his players, Carlesimo had created a Grand Canyon-sized divide between himself and the rest of the team with his intense personality. Arguably, he was hired as the coach of the Sonics in 2007 because management realized he would be dealing with a group of young, impressionable players who would be more susceptible to his teachings. Having had limited success with veteran players in the past, we now know that Carlesimo is incapable of coaching any professional players in a lead capacity and has likely headed up his last NBA team.

The only real bad thing about all this is that Seattle fans had to deal with Carlesimo throughout the Sonics turbulent final season. Who knows what a different coach would have been able to attain with a young, talented group like the neo-Thunder have. Now that Carlesimo’s out, the future looks bright for the one-time Sonics. In your face, Seattle.

The Warriors acquired Jamal Crawford from the New York Knicks in exchange for forward Al Harrington today, essentially swapping problems with one another. Harrington, a versatile big man with impressive athleticism, had expressed his desire to be traded after falling out of favor with head coach Don Nelson. The Knicks, meanwhile, were looking to rid themselves of Crawford’s large contract.

Crawford now has a chance to excel in a system suited for his style of play. As Baron Davis can attest, the offense-first mentality perpetuated by Don Nelson allows skilled scorers to flourish despite weaknesses in other areas (namely, defense). Crawford is likely to run the point for the Warriors until Monta Ellis can return from injury. At that point, Golden State may run into problems with a logjam at shooting guard, though an abundance of scorers in a quick-scoring offense shouldn’t be too much of a problem.

For those of you fantasy basketball players out there, this move should increase the value of both Crawford and Harrington in all formats. Harrington had been riding the pine in Oakland, but should see immediate PT in New York. Crawford will get a chance to improve his scoring and assist numbers in Golden State, at least for a few weeks. Those negatively affected by the move would have to be Warriors rookie Anthony Morrow, a shooting guard who has pieced together a couple amazing performances in the absence of scorers, and Zach Randolph in New York who will likely relinquish some of his rebounds and points to Harrington (*Note: Immediately following the posting of this article, Randolph was traded to the Los Angeles Clippers along with Mardy Collins in exchange for Tim Thomas and Cuttino Mobley).