Recapping the Giants draft with John Fennelly
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Category Archives: General Football
Recapping the Jets’ draft with Brian Bassett
Speaking of Princes
So who’s Muhammed Wilkerson?
Brian Bassett fills me in on the Jets’ first-round draft pick:
Selling the drama
I remember being disappointed when the Jets drafted Vernon Gholston, thinking he was a mere workout wonder, the type of guy that would never pan out. He didn’t. But then I remember being disappointed when they drafted D ‘Brickashaw Ferguson, thinking they were favoring a local guy over the skill-position players they needed. Now he is great, a cornerstone of a very good offensive line.
I don’t remember thinking much of anything when they picked Darrelle Revis, just sort of shrugging or something. Now he is one of the best players in the NFL.
Tonight the Jets will draft some guy, and some people will love it and others will hate it. Analysts in ridiculous suits will bark that he is a great pick or a not-so-great pick, then show 30 seconds’ worth of game footage to justify their stances.
And yeah, maybe some of those guys really put in the time and effort researching and watching footage and figuring out which young athletes seem most likely to become productive professional football players, but no one really knows. Where were the draft gurus on Tom Brady? Kurt Warner?
Of athletes in all the major sports, football players’ success is most dependent on their teammates and their coaches. There are likely running backs with all the skills to to succeed in the NFL who will go undrafted tonight because they had crappy offensive lines or played in systems that didn’t feature their talents. Quarterbacks will be overlooked because they had receivers that couldn’t run routes. Linebackers will be ignored because they played behind tackles that couldn’t prevent opposing linemen from reaching the second level.
It’s all a crapshoot. Teams make a series of educated guesses, then in September we find out if they were good ones. But the bluster around the draft has grown, for me at least, intolerable.
The NFL should be credited for a hype machine that can turn even the announcing of the schedule into prime-time TV, but there’s a breaking point. And a multiple-day American Idol buzzfest scheduled up against actual Major League Baseball games — things that count, real sports — is more than I can bear.
NFL owners can’t win, except in that they already have won because they’re billionaires
If the owners continue to push a lockout that has now been ruled illegal and harmful in U.S. District Court, they could end up being sued for damages. If the lockout is lifted by court order and the owners impose rules that restrict player movement and free agency, they could end up being sued for damages. Continuing to fight legal battles they appear unlikely to win could cost the owners considerably more than continuing the old collective bargaining agreement would have cost them.
It does not sound as if they realize this yet. They had this big conference call Monday night to plot strategy and came out of it saying they were still united. If these guys are smart, that will have to be nothing more than brave talk. Right now, the owners should be looking for the quickest and cheapest way out of this mess, and continuing to fight in court is not that way.
Good stuff from Graziano on Judge Susan Nelson’s decision to grant an injunction lifting the NFL lockout.
Baseball season has distracted me from the NFL’s labor dispute of late, but I’m happy the judge seems to be siding with the players. People dismiss the negotiations as “billionaires versus millionaires,” but fail to consider that a) there are many, many NFL players who are decidedly not millionaires and b) even the ones that are millionaires are undertaking a remarkably dangerous job that will provide only five years of healthcare coverage after retirement and a pension that kicks in at 55 even though their average life expectancy is 52. And when you’ve got the type of long-term health issues NFL players often face, paying your own medical expenses is a pretty solid way to burn through your coffers, no matter how large.
Of course, I’m not sure how much this injunction does to assuage those concerns. With 51st street currently lousy with pre-draft hubbub, though, I will say that it’s sort of shocking the NFL didn’t come up with a way to televise and monetize the judge’s ruling. Doritos NFL Injunction Special 2K11, featuring four dudes in shiny suits and hair gel barking about legal proceedings.
Apparently Tom Brady crying was only the second funniest part of ESPN’s Tom Brady draft special
I didn’t watch the show because it was about Tom Brady, who’s obviously a big stupid jerk, but apparently ESPN managed to interview five of the six quarterbacks drafted ahead of Brady on the miserable day that forced him to consider life as an insurance salesman.
The lone holdout? You guessed it: Former Hofstra standout Giovanni Carmazzi. The explanation is odd enough on its own, but it’s ESPN’s stock footage of goats that elevates the whole thing to surrealism:
Tom Brady overcome with emotion at the thought of having to go through life as merely a ridiculously handsome insurance salesman
Too silly not to share. Huge hat tip to James K. Skip to the 1:15 part:
Please travel with D’Brickashaw Ferguson, Mark Sanchez
Jets quarterback Mark Sanchez really seems to be fond of alluring Hayden Panettiere. The two were spotted Wednesday night at Beacher’s Madhouse in LA, where they shared cocktails and whispered to each other….
Panettiere is currently in a long-distance relationship with giant Ukrainian heavyweight boxer Wladimir Klitschko, and sources insist she’s “just friends” with Sanchez, who is also pals with Klitschko.
Look, I’m not here to offer you dating advice, Mark Sanchez, but you might want to be careful about this one.
Wladimir Klitschko is a 6’6″ 245-pound beast of a man. His nickname is “The Steel Hammer.” I’m sure you’re a pretty tough guy yourself, at least on the scale of handsome quarterbacks, but don’t pretend you don’t wear a red jersey in practice so no one hits you. Regardless of if you’re actually involved with the lovely Ms. Panettiere, you should probably take every possible measure to keep it out of the papers until she breaks things off with the reigning heavyweight champion. That means no public whispering or canoodling of any sort.
Incidentally, Klitscko is also a phD and speaks five languages. Sounds like a pretty desirable dude. But can he pull off white pants?
Man getting hit by football
I scoured the Internet for something awesome that you haven’t yet seen, but I settled on something you probably have. Who cares? This is the best the Internet will ever provide us, and perhaps the pinnacle of human civilization:
Tedquarters 