Football News and Picks

Bears boot late field goal to top mistake-prone Packers

ShareThis

Sep 28, 2010 Robbie Gould booted a 19-yard field goal with four seconds remaining in the game and the Bears took advantage of 18 Green Bay penalties to edge the Packers, 20-17, at Soldier Field. Devin Hester returned a punt 62 yards for a score and Gould kicked two field goals in the final four minutes, the final one coming after a Green Bay turnover. Aaron Rodgers completed a 12-yard pass to James Jones, but the linebacker tandem of Lance Briggs and Brian Urlacher caused a fumble near the sideline. Tim Jennings pounced on the ball, and the Packers challenged the call, but replays showed Jennings stayed in bounds, giving Chicago the ball at the Green Bay 46. Jay Cutler threw a 21-yard pass over the middle to tight end Greg Olsen. Two plays later, Cutler's pass was picked off by Nick Collins, but Morgan Burnett was called for pass interference. The penalty set up the Bears at the nine, and on fourth down, Gould's kick kept the Bears (3-0) unbeaten. A penalty on the final kickoff return set a Green Bay franchise record. "We didn't play our best game and we won. That has to be a good sign," Cutler said. "Offensively we have to get a lot better. I have to play better. The defense did a good job keeping us in there." Cutler finished 16-of-27 for 221 yards with a touchdown and an interception, while Rodgers ended 34-of-45 for 316 yards, also with a score and a pick. Rodgers also ran for a score, but the Packers (2-1), who were penalized 152 yards, suffered their first defeat. Jermichael Finley caught nine passes for 115 yards in the loss. "That's not the way we play," Rodgers said of the penalties. "That's disappointing. We're not that team. We took points off the board and took big plays off the board as well." Hester eluded tacklers while running toward the right sideline and stepped by punter Tim Masthay at the five for the 62-yad score on the second play of the fourth quarter, giving Chicago a 14-10 lead. It was Hester's eighth career punt return for a touchdown, tying him with Rick Upchurch, Desmond Howard and Jack Christiansen for third-most all-time. Green Bay then held the ball for nearly eight minutes, going on a 12-play, 72- yard drive that was culminated by Rodgers' third down, three-yard scramble to the right, diving into the end zone just inside the pylon. That gave the Packers the lead back with 6:52 remaining. Mistakes, though, really did in the Packers. Nick Barnett picked off Cutler, but linebacker Frank Zombo was penalized for a helmet-to-helmet hit on Cutler. Another ill-advised penalty, an unnecessary roughness call on Collins for slamming Matt Forte to the ground, moved the ball to the Green Bay 29. Gould ended up kicking a 25-yard field goal with 3:59 left to tie the game to set up the dramatic finish. Gould was wide right on a 49-yard field goal try on the game's opening possession, and Green Bay went ahead 7-0 on a Rodgers seven-yard TD pass to Greg Jennings. Cutler was intercepted in the end zone by Derrick Martin later in the first quarter and Mason Crosby's 38-yard field goal with 4:41 left in the half made it 10-0. That drive also lasted nearly eight minutes, covering 14 plays, 73 yards. The Bears finally got on the scoreboard thanks to Cutler's nine-yard TD pass to Olsen with 26 seconds left in the half, and Chicago came up big on special teams midway through the third as Julius Peppers blocked Crosby's 37-yard field goal try. Earlier in the drive, the Packers had a 15-yard TD pass to Finley nullified by a holding penalty on Mark Tauscher. Chicago wasted a golden opportunity to take the lead inside two minutes left in the third when the Bears dropped two passes in the end zone, including a fourth down attempt from Cutler to tight end Desmond Clark. Game Notes The Bears are off to their first 3-0 start since 2006 and are the only unbeaten NFC squad...Hester trails only Eric Metcalf (10) and Brian Mitchell (nine) for most punts returned for touchdowns. Hester has 12 combined kickoff/punt returns for touchdowns...Peppers has 10 career blocked field goals...This was the first time since 1962 that both teams entered the game with a 2-0 record. The Packers won that September 30, 1962, matchup in Green Bay, 49-0...The teams won't see each other again until Week 17, the first time that the Packers have ever hosted Chicago in the season finale...Bears long snapper Patrick Mannelly set a team record by playing in his 192nd game, surpassing Steve McMichael...Prior to the game, the Bears observed a moment of silence for George Blanda, who passed away Monday at the age of 83. Blanda played from 1949-58 for the Bears...Chicago defensive tackle Tommie Harris was benched and listed as inactive.

HSBC Replaces Three Most Senior Executives as Green Steps Down

Sept. 25 (Bloomberg) -- HSBC Holdings Plc, Europe’s biggest bank, ended two-and-a-half weeks of speculation about who would succeed Stephen Green as chairman by replacing all three of its most senior executives.

Michael Geoghegan, chief executive officer for the past four years, will step down after missing out on the chairmanship. He will be replaced by investment banking chief Stuart Gulliver. Green, who quit on Sept. 7 to become U.K. trade minister, will be replaced by finance director Douglas Flint. Iain MacKay, an executive in the bank’s Asia-Pacific unit, will fill Flint’s job, HSBC said in a statement yesterday.

The shakeup, the bank’s biggest for decades, follows a struggle over who would replace Green as chairman. Geoghegan, who became CEO when Green was promoted, struggled to attract investor support for the chairmanship. In a Bloomberg survey of 20 HSBC shareholders this week, not one backed him. HSBC’s chairmen have been former CEOs for at least the past 33 years.

“It’s been historically that the chief executive goes on to be chairman -- but you have to be asked,” Geoghegan told reporters on a conference call yesterday. “The reality was I wasn’t asked. I was told I was a very good chief executive, and another person would be better as chairman.”

Geoghegan, who’s worked at HSBC for 37 years, said Simon Robertson, the director in charge of finding Green’s successor, told him over dinner 10 days ago that Flint would become chairman. Geoghegan, 56, had threatened to quit if he were passed over, the Financial Times said this week, a report an HSBC spokesman described as “nonsense.”

‘Satisfactory Result’

“No one is indispensable,” said Colin McLean, who helps manage 560 million pounds ($880 million) at SVM Asset Management in Edinburgh, including HSBC shares. “When someone has laid their position on the line, the board was put in an impossible position,” he added. “It’s a very satisfactory result,” he said of the Gulliver and Flint appointments.

HSBC closed up 0.4 percent at 666.3 pence in London trading before the announcement. The shares have dropped 6 percent this year, the worst performance among U.K. bank stocks.

“They haven’t been held hostage,” said Jane Coffey, head of U.K. equities at Royal London Asset Management, which manages $51 billion, including HSBC stock. “It seems like a reasonable compromise. In the end they have two pretty good people.”

Investors balked at Geoghegan’s elevation to chairman because it would break U.K. corporate governance rules dating from 2003 that were designed to foster board independence. When HSBC promoted Green to chairman two years later, it explained the move was necessary “because the company is so large,” a spokesman said at the time.

Governance ‘Changed’

“The governance of this company has changed over the last five years,” Green told reporters yesterday. “Previously there was a very strong executive chairman, who really was the key management figure.”

Geoghegan increased his executive powers in February when he moved to Hong Kong to sharpen HSBC’s focus on Asia. In a statement published the day Green stepped down, he said he would “continue to run” HSBC, which was founded in Hong Kong and Shanghai in 1865.

“HSBC is losing its chairman and chief executive within weeks of each other in an unplanned way, which is not a good thing,” said Mike Trippitt, an analyst at Oriel Securities Ltd. in London, who has an “add” rating on the stock. “To get it so spectacularly wrong at the top level is quite worrying.”

Geoghegan Pay

Geoghegan will be paid 1.42 million pounds when he leaves and will be eligible for a bonus of as much as 4.2 million pounds for 2010, the lender said. He will also be a consultant for three months after his retirement. He plans to donate his 200,000-pound fee for that work to charity, HSBC said.

Gulliver will receive a 1.25 million-pound salary and an allowance to fund a pension. His bonus hasn’t been set, and his total pay will be less than the 9.8 million pounds he received in 2009, HSBC said. Flint, 55, will get 1.5 million pounds in salary and half as much again to fund a pension, HSBC said. He won’t receive a bonus or share incentives.

Gulliver, 51, runs a division that doubled operating profit between 2005 and 2009 to become HSBC’s biggest earner. Flint’s and Gulliver’s combined 45 years of experience at HSBC may help alleviate concerns that the change would hurt profit, investors and analysts said.

Revenue at Gulliver’s global corporate, investment banking and markets division almost doubled to $21.9 billion last year from $11.5 billion in 2005, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The unit’s operating income jumped to $10.1 billion from $4.9 billion in the period.

Investment Banking Chiefs

Robin Phillips and Samir Assaf will continue to run the global banking and markets division, and report to Gulliver. Gulliver’s responsibilities for the U.K., continental Europe and the Middle East will pass to Sandy Flockhart, who will also be chairman of HSBC’s U.K. bank.

Gulliver was born in England and educated at Oxford University. He joined HSBC in 1980 and held senior roles in Hong Kong and Tokyo, running the investment bank in Asia before moving to London in early 2003. He became head of the global corporate, investment banking and markets division with John Studzinski, who departed in 2006, leaving Gulliver in charge.

The proportion of HSBC’s earnings generated from investment banking will remain stable, and the lender will continue its focus on emerging markets, Gulliver told reporters on a conference call yesterday.

“Stuart’s appointment will not signal any change in strategy for HSBC as a universal bank with future growth focused in Asia,” wrote Ian Gordon, an analyst at BNP Paribas in London who has a “neutral” rating on the stock.

Gulliver is the second investment-banking executive picked to lead one of the four biggest U.K. banks this month, following Barclays Plc’s appointment of Bob Diamond on Sept. 7. Diamond’s promotion was criticized by Business Secretary Vince Cable. His department declined to comment on Gulliver’s appointment.

--With assistance from Joyce Koh in Singapore, Kelvin Wong and Rishaad Salamat in Hong Kong, Ben Martin, Andrew MacAskill and Kevin Crowley in London and Christine Harper in New York. Editors: Edward Evans, Dan Reich

What's Wrong with 'Free'

There's nothing wrong with offering the occasional sample freebie as long as you don't undermine your brand's value, says Steve McKee, who suggests that selling serves everyone

By Steve McKee

"Free." Some say it's the most powerful word in the English language. Others romance it as a magical marketing term. For poor, bloodied businesses struggling through tough economic times, using "free" to lure leery customers can be tempting indeed.

You might want to think twice about that.

Don't get me wrong. As a consumer, I like getting something for nothing. In commerce, however, there's really no such thing—anything of value costs somebody something. When companies make a gratis offer, what they're really doing is muddying the cost-benefit equation and making it more difficult for their prospects to make a clear value determination. It's kind of like getting a big tax refund; it feels like found money, but offering a no-interest loan to the government isn't to your advantage.

Still, there's no doubt that "free" can be irresistible to consumers, especially those who are adept at gaming the system without purchasing anything. (They sure aren't the ones you want to attract.) Few advertisers recognize the damaging effects that free offers can achieve, even when they do lure people to buy. You might call them the "Three Ds."

Free is dangerous. Price isn't just a reflection of value; it's an indication of it. When something is offered free for any length of time, people begin to value it less. Over time, this makes them unwilling to pay a premium for it—or pay for it at all. It may seem at first as if "free" helps your value proposition, but it ultimately hurts it.

Remember when it felt really special to get a free basic cell phone when you signed a two-year service contract? Now we've come to expect it. Similarly, many newspapers are struggling with their online properties, trying to charge readers for content after having offered it free for years. Watch: As e-commerce companies increasingly offer free shipping and more hotels offer free high-speed Internet service, both will become ever-more difficult to charge for. We'll still pay for them—via costs that are buried in other charges.

Free is duplicable. If you can offer something for free, so can your competitors. The more people pick up on your offer, the more quickly your competitors will match it. What might begin as a temporary tactical advantage can quickly become an industry albatross— can you say frequent flyer

Years ago a local grocery chain began doubling the value of coupons people brought in from their Sunday-morning circulars. The move attracted a lot of attention and competing chains soon matched the offer. Soon enough a coupon war was on, and it didn't end until triple- and even quadruple-coupon offers decimated the chains' razor-thin margins. They finally called it quits after losing millions of dollars. This story has been repeated thousands of times in hundreds of industries, from fast food to industrial equipment.

Free is deceptive. Not to your customers, although I could make a case for that. It's deceptive to you. It's easy to forget that there are four marketing Ps: If your product, place, and promotion don't add up to something of clear value, you can't expect pricing to bail you out. Car dealers have historically been the poster child of this approach, shouting and screaming about free giveaways and low prices when the bigger problem (and significant opportunity) is how awful the car-buying experience tends to be. It's as if they're blind to what ails them.

Other companies that advertise seasonally or otherwise infrequently can misunderstand the danger, too. Instead of steadily building brand equity around a real value proposition, they expect to measure the immediate impact of every ad. That makes it natural for them to turn to the "magic word," not realizing that such a short-term focus often compromises their long-term prospects. Offering something for nothing seems so easy, when in reality it can be one of the hardest things to recover from.

"Free" is fine in small doses for limited periods of time, such as a free initial consultation or a free sample of a new product at the supermarket. It's both smart and polite to offer something at no charge as a gesture of courtesy or appreciation to existing customers, from free parking to an occasional thank-you gift. Doing so can have a positive effect, precisely because it's after the sale: Customers have already accepted your price-value proposition as reasonable, and the value of what you're offering them doesn't call that into question.

It's when you offer something for nothing as an enticement to buy that the danger sets in. If you try to fool your prospects by making your pitch about what's "free," you'll also be fooling yourself. Instead, focus on demonstrating real value and how you can get prospects to part happily with their money. You—and they—will be better off.

Lohan Fails a Drug Test, Phoenix Fails to Fake Us Out and Brand Fails to Kill the Paparazzi Once and for All SEP 22, 2010

Lindsay Lohan Fails Drug Test, Surprises No One Another week has gone by, and yes, Lindsay Lohan has failedanother drug test. Not long after being released from rehab for being totally clean, sober and awesome, La Lohan was back in the spotlight yet again after admitting to failing a random drug test. She’s due back in court this week, where a judge could sentence her to 30 more days in jail for violating her parole. I’d say something about our tax dollars being wasted, but we all know you secretly love to watch this girl self-destruct, so why even go there?

FASTER Movie Posters

Hatchet 2 Movie Posters

Dialogue: Legend of the Guardians and True Blood Star Ryan Kwanten, on Adopting Accents, Surviving Sex Scenes and Shark Attacks, and What’s on the Horizon

Most Americans know and love Ryan Kwanten as Sookie's libidinous brother, Jason Stackhouse, on HBO's top-rated True Blood, but the Aussie actor had a lot of roles tucked under his belt before he moved to Los Angeles about eight years ago. Now that True Blood is on hiatus, we’ll be seeing much more of Kwanten on the big screen. We sat down with the affable, well-spoken Kwanten (who is nothing like the dim-witted Southerner he plays on HBO) as he chatted candidly about voicing an owl inLegend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole, surviving a shark attack, getting naked on True Blood, and his two other upcoming films.

Movies.com: You voice the character of Kludd in Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole, who is the older brother of the main character, Soren. Do you play a bad-ass barn owl?
Ryan Kwanten: You have to see what inspires him to get to that point. He's the big brother who feels the need to set an example—not necessarily a good one—to be the best of the family. Soren is so much more naturally gifted and graceful, so Kludd's eyes turn toward turn the darker side.

Movies.com: You push sibling Soren out of the nest when you are baby birds. In real life, do you like lots of people around you or do you need more elbow room? 
Kwanten: I'm definitely an elbow-room guy. I used to get a sort of sociophobia, and I still get it sometimes these days when I'm in a confined space with too many people. It's not like I freak out or anything, it's just that I'm far more comfortable in my own company sometimes than being surrounded by one thousand strangers.

Movies.com: Legend of the Guardians is your first role as a voice actor. What's it like to not have anyone to react to on camera? 
Kwanten: It's really kind of bizarre. As actors, you're told to suspend disbelief at the best of times—when you have another actor, studio and props. When you only have your voice to do that, you have to work that much harder but also realize you don't want to try to do everything with your voice. Obviously there is an expert team of animators that comes in and puts in the mannerisms and other characteristics.

I never had any actors in the room with me. It's going to seem like this great family of actors that all worked together and had a great time. I had a great time, but I was never in the same room with Helen Mirren. There's a disjointed nature to my character anyway—he's finding himself the whole way—so I didn't find that being isolated hindered it.

Movies.com: Most people know you as Jason Stackhouse on True Blood, who has a Southern drawl. What accent does a barn owl have?
Kwanten: A lot of the owls have an English accent. The majority of the other actors are Australian. Kludd has an Australian accent, but it has more of a boyish quality at the beginning. Then, as he turns darker, so does his voice—it gets lower and more mysterious.

Movies.com: Jason Stackhouse spends a lot of time on True Blood naked. What is scarier: sex scenes on set or the shark attack you survived when you were 12 in Australia? 
Kwanten: They're not scary enough to make me think either, A) I don't want to go back in the water or, B) I never want to shoot a scene like that again. I'm fortunate enough with the surfing to be very much at home at the water—my pulse and heart rate are slower in the water than they are on land. I don't want to get bitten by a shark again in the near future, but I don't stop going in the water because of that. I'd rather get the joy out of surfing than living my life in fear. With the True Blood stuff, I just feel like I'm putting myself in safe, capable hands with Alan Ball and the crew and it never feels exploitative or gratuitous.

Movies.com: Season three of True Blood just ended. Do you know what's next for Jason Stackhouse? 
Kwanten: I'm a very curious and analytical guy, but Jason is not like that at all. He is very spontaneous and spur of the moment, so it works to my advantage to not know everything. I have no desire to put in my input because they've been writing so unbelievably well for me that I wouldn't want to ruin that.

Movies.com: Will Jason and Tara ever hook up on True Blood?
Kwanten: I like the fact that there are allusions to that all the time because it keeps people guessing. The interesting thing about that relationship is that it comes from such a young age, so it's almost that type of friend that you haven't seen in a long time that it only takes a few seconds to rekindle your relationship. That's the sort of friendship Jason and Tara have—they have such a bond because of their past.

Movies.com: In November your film Red Hill, which was filmed in Australia, is coming to theaters. Set the scene for us. 
Kwanten: It's a revenge Western, like an old Clint Eastwood Western meets No Country for Old Men. It's set in the highlands of Australia—a gorgeous backdrop to a brutal story of this killer trying to take revenge on things that happened in his past. I'm stuck in the middle on my first day as a deputy of this town. I'm trying to track down this killer to put together the pieces of the puzzle.

Movies.com: What can you tell us about your upcoming horror-comedy The Knights of Badassdom, which has one of the best titles of the year?
Kwanten: That was originally pitched to me as influenced by Role Models, so I was intrigued. The script had such great, meaty moments that always treaded that fine line between comedy and horror. So many films try to do that, but it's such a delicate balance that you have to be careful to how you approach it. I'm an atypical comedic actor—I play the straight guy in this. They surrounded me with Steve Zahn and Peter Dinklage, and they have such incredible timing and really knew their characters back to front. We had a ball together.

Movies.com: How often do you go back to Australia and what do you miss the most?
Kwanten: I was fortunate enough to do two films there during my True Blood hiatus, and that was the first time I had been back there working in seven years. I try to get back over the holiday period in December, but that's about it. I miss my family, the beaches, the Australian beer and barbecues…the real simple things.

I'm slowly surrounding myself with those sorts of things here as well. I really do feel like Los Angeles is my home now and, as cliché as this sounds, I felt like I found myself here and I really know who I am now. There was a long period like I was drifting or floating through life, and now I feel like I have a definitive target--and future.