Classless At The Draft

Why is the NFL draft at Radio City Music Hall in New York every year? After the disrespect that the fans there have showed for the game, it should be moved. Make it rotating around all 32 NFL cities. Why can't this happen? Booing the commissioner? Why? Booing other teams? Why? When Troy Brown got booed when he read the Patriots 2nd round pick, I think he should have flashed his Super Bowl ring. Shut those Jets fans right up. It's a serious sign of disrespect to the sport to boo like that. Way to show class New York.

18 Games? Yes Please!

I love football. I miss football. I live on the couch watching football all days on Sunday during the season. If there are plans, my girlfriend knows to not schedule them during Patriots games.

I understand that it's a violent game. People get injured and it's being discovered that there are long term affects from playing the game.

The NFL wants to add 2 more games to the schedule, making it 18 total. As a compromise they'll take away 2 of the preseason games. Right now there are 20 games total and with the new proposal there will still be 20 games total.

Yes, preseason games are not real football games, they're live action try-outs for back-ups, new schemes, new players, etc..

Those opposed to the 18 games keep citing injury and call the NFL hypocrites for on one hand saying they want to promote player safety and on the other hand wanting two more games that would be two more additional times for players to get hurt.

I fail to see where the hypocrisy lies. Why can't the game be made safer and at the same time add a couple more?

Of course it's about money. That's why the owners own the teams and thats why the players play. Money.

The hypocrisy angle makes no sense. If you make the game safer to play, then the risk of injury in the two additional games is lower. There will always be a risk of injury in football, it's a violent game.

That will never change.

But the players CHOOSE to play the game. They understand the risks. They have always understood the risks. But they still choose to play the game. I know what the risk is when I speed or climb up onto the roof and jump into the pool like I did as a kid. But I chose to take those risks, the consequences are on me.

Football players choose to play this very violent game. They know what can happen and they still choose to play. So they know what can happen when they get older. They are choosing to face those risks.

I know what can happen when go on a construction site. I choose to accept those risks.

So I just don't understand the "more injury" angle. So? They take that risk in the 16 games now. Will 2 more really be tempting fate that much? Probably not. Career ending injuries happen off the field all the time (Robert Edwards). I don't see how 2 more games will really cause that many more injuries ESPECIALLY if you end up making the game safer in the first place.

It seems more of a win/win. Players get two additional games of income. Owners get two additional games of income. Fans get two more games to watch.

One of the things that I love about Football over Hockey, Baseball and Basketball is that Football only has the 16 (18) games. Every single game counts. The Red Sox are 1 and 5 right now but it's not panic time just yet, it's a long season. Not in football. In the NFL, 1 and 5 means you're most likely missing the playoffs, your season is essentially over.

Every game counts.

Two more games won't adversely affect that. It would actually make it more interesting, making the middle of the season more intriguing becuase those two extra games means more teams will have a shot at the playoffs for longer.

Players getting worn out? There's a solution for that that would benefit the league and the fans in the long run.

The solution? Add more players.

Have teams make the decision to play their starters for all 18 games or borrow something from baseball and have the back-ups play a couple games mid-season or near the end. Why wouldn't that work?

The benefit? The back-up QB, for example, gets meaningful playing time which lets him develop a bigger body of work and makes him more interesting to team's looking at him as a potential starter. Matt Flynn got a big payday off 2 games performances. What would have happened if he had had more visible playing time?

The players have more players on the field in more meaningful playing time. Now instead of a back-up being a space filler, the back-up would need to play a couple of games and be good enough to really win. That makes them more valuable and means more money for them and the player's union.

This carries over to every position. That means more players in the League.

For the fans? I can't be the only one that isn't a star-watcher. I don't just watch football to see Brady throwing the ball to Welker. I love watching them, but I love watching football more. I'd still watch every game even if it was Ryan Mallett throwing to Donte Stallworth for two or three games.

And from a Fantasy Football standpoint? Things get infinitely more interesting. Now when drafting you have to take into account that players won't play all the games, instead of just byes, and you wouldn't necessarily know when that would be so would have to plan on it. Fantasy just got more interesting and challenging and fun.

I just can't see a negative to going to 18 games.

Fans get more football and more players to watch.
Owners get more football and more income.
Players get more income, more time off (less injury) with others playing meaningful games, and there are more people playing football.

What's the problem?

NFL Draft: The Biggest Crapshoot In The World

The NFL draft gets alot of attention. Not sure if it's deserving or not. I tend to just randomly check throughout the day (night now) and see who picked when and where and really pay attention to who the Patriots pick.

In the grand scheme of things it's a complete guessing game. No one know what is going to happen when these players play in their first NFL game. There's no way to tell.

Sure a player could be graded high, but if he goes to a crappy team who doesn't know how to use him right, he'll end up sucking and could be considered a bust.

So much about what makes a player good is who they're playing for, who they're playing with, what scheme they are playing under, etc.. That's why there are so many free agents that end up playing better with their new team and so many that end up playing worse.

There is just too much that goes into a player's development that it's impossible to guess how well they will do. So the draft is the world's biggest crapshoot. It's all guesswork and hopes and prayers. Would Tom Brady, a 7th round pick and the 1st or 2nd best QB in the league, be as good if he played for a different team?

That's what makes the draft rehashes such a waste of time. Sure we can look back and see what mistakes were made, but it's pointless to substitute players by looking at what we know now. There's still no gurantee that the player would be as good as they are now.

Mock drafts are funny. So much of it is guesswork and more often then not, even the experts like Mel Kiper, end up being wrong. Very wrong. Predicting who 32 teams will pick? Impossible.

But mocking what their needs are? That's fairly doable.

The Patriots pick 27th and 31st. Their biggest needs are Defensive Line, Linebacker and Cornerback. I'd like to see them trade out of the 27th spot and pick up more 2nd round picks (where I think the best value in the draft usually is) and another 1st for next year. The 31st pick should go DE, then 2nd round should be nothing but CBs.

Last year was very odd. They picked a couple of running backs and tight ends, and they already had Gronkowski and Hernandez. So the drafted TEs were more then likely never going to play. So why bother drafting them?

It was a waste of a draft.

Right now the Pats have 2 1s, 2 2s, 1 3 and 1 4. They should be able to get some good talent with those picks.

I'd like to see one of the 1st be traded and pick up another 2nd for this year. So would be 1 1, 3 2s, 1 3 and 1 4. DE, CB, CB, OL, RB, DE.

That's my hope.

The draft may be a major crapshoot, but at least it provides for a ton of reading material during the offseason.

Manning Should Have Been A Titan

People are talking about the Titans and 49ers as being the losers in the Manning sweepstakes, and they are, but it's not like they would have been huge winners if had gotten Manning.

The 49ers would be in the same boat as the Broncos, but not as badly. They wouldn't have been able to keep Alex Smith, and it looks like he's pissed at them for even looking at Manning and leaving anyways. But at least they had a back-up in place already, Colin Kaepernick. And their team was the closest to reaching the Super Bowl. Manning could have been the piece to put them over the bar.

Now they have to find a starting QB because the run at Manning will cost them Alex Smith.

The ones that would have gotten an almost equal cost vs gain ratio from signing Manning (and losing) are the Titans.

Signing Manning would have led to the release of Hasselbeck, and an 85% Manning is a slight upgrade to Hasselbeck. Jake Locker? He's not the starter to begin with and the Coach could always say "use it as an Aaron Rodgers situation". Rodgers sat behidn Favre for a couple of years before exploding onto the scene as a starter. Don't think Locker wouldn't have wanted to learn from Manning before pulling a Rodgers?

Now, the Locker situation still exists, but he's behind Hasselbeck again. Hasselbeck isn't going anywhere. Tennessee is a perfect situation for him, even if they did go after Manning.

For Manning, the better options would have been:

1- 49ers
2- Titans
3- Broncos

If he wanted to go to a team that would have the best shot at getting to the super bowl.

The Losers In The Manning Sweepstake? The Broncos

But wait, how can that be? They signed Manning.

Sure, but at what gain versus what cost?

The gain? A 4 time MVP/Pro Bowl quarterback who has been on a steady decline (look up the stats, they back this up) and is coming off of 4 neck surgeries. His old team let him go because they weren't sure he'd be able to play at the level he had before, play a full season or even play at all.

Sure, an 85% Manning is better then Tebow or Brady Quinn (who is no longer with the team). So would think it would end up being a gain right?

No. And this is the same thing that affected the other teams in the Manning hunt.

They get Manning, it's all in and have to hope he plays at 85% and manages to stay healthy. They lose Manning, they've undermined their organization. They even get Manning and they have to trade/cut some valuable players. Well, it depends on if you think Tebow is valuable.

I'll get to the Titans (who would have made out the best by getting Manning but also make out the best out of the losers), 49ers and Miami later. For now let's look at the Broncos.

If you have Manning as your starter, you can't have Tebow as your backup. It just doesn't work. Two wildly different styles. For Tebow to be effective, you have to scheme around his strengths. And those aren't the same as Manning.

The Broncos would have been better with Brady Quinn as the back-up, but he's gone now. And they'll have to trade Tebow (I wouldn't expect Tebow to go somewhere as the back-up. He'll either be the starter, Miami, or a pure situational player, Patriots).

Manning goes down, for all we know it could be just one hit that knocks him out of the game for good, and who do you have behind him? No one.

Even if the Broncos draft a 1st round QB, which they absolutely should no matter what, would you really want to throw the QB into the deep end if Manning goes down?

The Broncos have to pray that Manning stays healthy and plays at an 85% level.

I don't think it'll be worth the 90 million they'll have to pay. I think the results for the Broncos will be the same as if they still had Tebow under center.

By the way, I hope the Patriots pick up Tebow and use him as Belichek originally wanted: situational player. How dangerous would the offense be with Brady at the helm, Gronkowski/Hernandez/Welker receiving and Woodhead/Tebow in the backfield?

Will Tebow go out and catch? Run like a fullback? Take the snap and pass? Will he pass short or will he pass deep? Play him as a Tight End sometimes, as a fullback other times (like they did with Hernandez some last year) and a wildcat QB. And unlike most wildcats, can have him line-up as running back, Brady take the snap and hand off.

That's not a scary offense that will give defenses nightmares?

Brees Was A Good Trade For Chargers. Sproles Was Not.

In a recent Snap Judgments on CNNSI.Com, Don Banks asked "and when will Smith's decision to go with Philip Rivers over Brees at quarterback in 2006 rightly go down as one of the worst personnel calls in league history?"

The answer?

Never.

Drew Brees is on of the top four QBs in the league, NOW, there's no doubting that (Aaron Rodgers, Tom Brady, Drew Brees and Peyton Manning pre-neck surgery, have to wait and see what happens when he returns). Rounding out the Top 5 would be Ben Roethlisberger or Philip Rivers. That same Rivers that Banks is saying was such a downgrade from Brees.

We have to remember some things about the decision to jettison Brees:
1- He was coming off major shoulder surgery and no one was sure if he would be the same (similar to what is being questioned about Manning now).
2- He wasn't the QB he is now back then.

Look at his numbers with the Chargers:
2002: 76.9 rating, 17 TD, 16 INT (his first full year), 8-8 record (4th in division)
2003: 67.5 rating, 11 TD, 15 INT, 4-12 record (4th in division)
2004: 104.8 rating, 27 TD, 7 INT, 12-4 record (1st in division)
2005: 89.2 rating, 24 TD, 15 INT, 9-7 record (3rd in division)

Decent. A year that showed what he was capable of, but not Top 3 QB numbers or results. During his time with the Chargers he led them to one playoff game and lost in the Wild Card round to the Jets. Where was the evidence to A.J. Smith that Drew Brees would someday break Dan Marino's passing record? Where wsa the evidence that this was a guy that would lead the Chargers to the Super Bowl?

GMs aren't fortune tellers. They can't see what the future will bring. All Smith can do is go off of the evidence before him. With the shoulder surgery, Brees not having been the greatest during his Chargers time, the availability of Rivers in the draft. What was Smith to do?

History will show that Brees is better then Rivers, at least right now, who knows what the future holds for Rivers. But really, there is no gurantee that if Brees had stayed with the Chargers the results would still have been the same. There might not have been a Super Bowl victory. There might not have been the passing record. None of that is guranteed

This deal wasn't the greatest trade in the history of the NFL. But it wasn't anywhere near being "one of the worst personnel calls in league history". Not even close.

For comparasion let's look at Rivers numbers:
2006: 92.0 rating, 22 TD, 9 INT, 14-2 (1st in division, lost to Patriots in Divisional round)
2007: 82.5 rating, 21 TD, 15 INT, 11-5 (1st in division, lost to Patriots in Conference Championship)
2008: 105.6 rating, 34 TD, 11 INT, 8-8 (1st in division, lost to Steelers in Divisional round)
2009: 104.4 rating, 28 TD, 9 INT, 13-3 (1st in division, lost to the Jets in Divisional round)
2010: 101.8 rating, 30 TD, 13 INT, 9-7 (2nd in division)
2011: 88.7 rating, 27 TD, 20 INT, 8-8 (2nd in division)

So where has Rivers been so awful? Four division titles is bad? Sure any GM would trade a Super Bowl victory for 4 division titles. But like I said before, there's no gurantee that Brees would have won a Super Bowl with the Chargers.

Let's look at Brees numbers when he joined the Saints:
2006: 96.3 rating, 26 TD, 11 INT, 10-6 (1st in division, lost to Bears in Conference Championship)
2007: 89.4 rating, 28 TD 18 INT, 7-9 (3rd in division)
2008: 96.3 rating, 34 TD, 17 INT, 8-8 (4th in division)
2009: 109.6 rating, 34 TD, 11 INT, 13-3 (1st in division, won the Super Bowl)
2010: 90.9 rating, 33 TD, 22 INT, 11-5 (2nd in division, lost to Seahawks in Wild Card round)
2011: 110.6 rating, 46 TD, 14 INT, 13-3 (1st in division, playing 49ers in Divisional Round this weekend)

Brees has become one of the top 3/4 (if Manning is playing) QBs in the league. But really how far off from Rivers is he? Like I said, there's no gurantee the same thing would have happened if he had stayed with the Chargers.

Using Banks logic that trading Brees away was so bad, it stands to reason that if he had gone to Miami that the same thing would have happened. He would have won a Super Bowl, he would have passed Marino's record.

Does anyone really believe that?

Now if Brees had done what he had done in New Orleans and Rivers had pulled a Vince Young in San Diego, then it would have been a bad move. But how much of the Chargers not advancing is to blame on Rivers?

Brees is damn good. Rivers is good. Calling the Brees trade one of the worst personal moves in League history is just dumb.

And I usually like what Banks said, but this one was just so crazy I had to comment.

Now the trade of Darren Sproles? That was dumb.

(the difference is that the evidence was there in San Diego that Sproles was capable of doing what he did this year with the Saints, trading him away was just stupid)

The reason the GMs for the Bears and Colts Got Fired? T.J. Yates

T.J. Yates is the 3rd string quarterback for the Houston Texans. He had a 2-3 record in the games he played and he won the most important game in Texans history, their first playoff game on Saturday (last night).

So what does that have to do with the Indy Colts and Chicago Bears? Both teams fired their GMs but kept their coaches. This is important because it means the owners think/realize that the coaches did their best with the pieces they were give. And who gives the coaches those pieces? The GMs.

Back to Yates. Texans' GM Rick Smith drafted Yates in the 5th round. Was it to be a pure back-up or possible starter is unknown, but it is known that Smith assumed/thought that Yates would be able to play and win games for them. No one ever thinks they'll be that far down the depth chart due to injury, but have to be prepared for it to happen.

Indy lost Peyton Manning for the season and all they had was Curtis Painter. They didn't show the confidence in Painter right from the beginning, they went out and signed Kerry Collins to be their starter. And when he went down to injury, it was the Painter era and that had disastrious results.

Chicago lost Jay Cutler to injury and turned to Caleb Hanie, and the talking head opinion at the time was that Hanie would be just good enough to limp the Bears into the playoffs, since they were already set up well by Cutler. That never happened and it took the Bears GM awhile to give up on Hanie.

It's the GMs job to provide the pieces to field a winning team. The back-up shouldn't be as good as the starter but needs to be capable of winning games (see Patriots with Matt Cassel and Green Bay with Matt Flynn). It's the responsiblity of the GM to prepare the team's personal for the day the starter goes down. That means they need to provide the team with a back-up that will and can win games.

Both Indy's GM, Bill Polian (and son Chris Polian) and the Bear's GM, Jerry Angelo, failed to do that. That's the biggest reason they lost their jobs. The Indy situation was worse then the Bears. Indy's defense went down. This was a team built around Manning and what he was capable of doing. When he went down, the team wasn't the same. That's the fault of the GM.

You might say "But Kansas City had a similar situation. Matt Cassel went down and Tyler Palko was horrible". And you would be correct in mentioning that. The difference between KC and Indy/Chicago is that KC's GM is newer. Angelo and the Polians have been in their jobs for years, Pioli is on year 4. That gives him a little bit of leeway, but not much. There is no excuse for Polians and Angelo.

A 5th round, 3rd string QB cost two long-tenured GMs their jobs by highlighting how badly they had failed at it in recent years.

Tebow Is The New Wildcat

Remember a couple of seasons (this is about football, the season spans multiple years) ago when the Miami Dolphins debuted the Wildcat to great success?

They demolished my beloved Patriots and used it to carry them to an AFC East title and the playoffs. The next year though, teams were ready for it and even drafting a "wildcat quarterback" (Pat White, who is out of the NFL now) didn't help. The wildcat has now become an occasional play used to try and surprise the defenses. Although how much of a surprise is it when the QB lines up in the slot (or is off the feed completely)?

So that brings us to Tebow and the success he's had since he took over as starter (although, the last couple of weeks have definately put a dent in that success and only helped reinforce why I think he's the new wildcat).

Tebow caught the other teams by surprise. He's a bad passer, worse then many of the back-ups that are out there (Tyler Palko, Caleb Hanie.. I'm looking at you). But he's just good enough that you have to pay attention to the possibility of a throw. His real threat is running. So when he first showed up behind center it was a surprise to the other teams and that's how he was able to lead the Broncos to victory. He was just good enough that the defense kept them in the games.

Not to take away from his obvious leadership abilities, which is what got his team to rally behind him. It caused the defense to play better and the offense as well.

But look whats happened the last couple of weeks. He's been stuffed. Teams are starting to figure out how to stop him. He's become one dimensional. They aren't fearing his passing abilities like they have to with Cam Newton and Michael Vick. Tebow is becoming the new wildcat. A fad, so to speak, that surprised people with how effective it was but once they figured it out, it wasn't as effective anymore.

During the draft hype leading up to Cam Newton being selected #1, I was pretty confused as to why Newton was #1 and Tebow was a shock that he got picked in the first round. To me, with what I knew going in (not a huge college football fan), they seemed the same type of QB.

But there is a difference. Cam Newton is a good passer. Tim Tebow is not.