Did You Feel A Draft?

Did you feel a draft? No, not the NFL Draft, but that brisk breeze that just whisked by. I think it was caused by Randy Moss. He is still one the NFL’s speediest; he was told he would be a Patriot and ran a post from Oakland to Foxboro before his agent hung up the phone.

It seems that the Patriots consistently do what they feel it takes to get their team where it needs to be. They have an agenda and a goal and they stick with it. Other franchises cannot boast the same commitment.

Oakland has a higher employee turnover rate than McDonald’s and with less customer satisfaction. The players and coaches are consistently not happy and there is a basic lack of morale. Robert Gallery never lived up to the plug-n-play hype; Art Shell was a bust the second time around; Moss was disgruntled; and Al Davis sits perched atop his throne with his violin whilst Rome burns around him, JaMarcus Russell notwithstanding.

Another team that had such promise and a long window of opportunity was the Kansas City Chiefs. Herm Edwards has that personality trait that husbands usually have—they “yes” the wife to death, and do what they want anyway. He swore up and down he wasn’t leaving the Jets, but when the money was thrown at him, he left New York’s screen door swinging in the summer air when he booked to Missouri. Now, he seems to be cleaning house. Get rid of Trent Green, shop Larry Johnson, let the offensive line retire, lose Dante Hall, but don’t worry, “Cuz, we gonna win!” We will be feeling the Mr. Gonzalez breeze shortly, I’m sure.

Lance Briggs wanted to make his own draft in the chill of Chicago, but the door got slammed in his face before he was able to muster up enough steam. Once his agent unlocks that door, you will think Hurricane Katrina hit Illinois.

The jury is still out if the draft is a good or a bad thing. I guess we’ll just have to ask Jeff Gordon.

A Meeting Of The Minds

The Super Bowl Champion Indianapolis Colts are meeting with President Bush at the White House today. Jim Irsay, owner of the Colts, chartered a jet and will take those players and coaches who were the biggest part of the Super Bowl win.

A few questions arise with this whole scenario.

1. Why did it take so long to set up this meeting? It seems a tad inconvenient with the draft coming up on Saturday, doesn’t it?

2. Dominic Rhodes, Nick Harper, and Cato June will be attending. These players are no longer with the team. It’s the equivalent of going to your ex-wife’s engagement party. How awkward can you get?

3. Will this meeting be cut short because of Boris Yeltsin’s untimely demise?

4. Is President Bush a Bears fan?

Raise your hand if you wish you could be a fly on the wall in this little soiree. I‘ll try to speculate on the conversation that will transpire.

BUSH: (Outstretched arms) Gentlemen, welcome to my humble abode.

IRSAY: (Shaking hands with the President) Thank you very much, sir. This is a real honor and privilege to be here. Let me introduce to our head coach, Tony Dungy.

DUNGY: (Shaking hands with the President) It’s a pleasure, sir.

BUSH: I don’t believe I have ever seen you without a baseball cap. You look a little like Britney Spears, heh, heh. You know the head coach is the Commander-In-Chief of the football team. I’m the Commander-In-Chief of the United States, so we sort of have something in common, heh, heh.

DUNGY: (With utmost composure) Uh, yes, sir.

BUSH: (To Peyton Manning) So, you must be the quarterback of this fine team. You know, the quarterback is like the General on a battlefield. I’m like the General of the United States, so we sort of have something in common, heh, heh.

MANNING: (With utmost composure) Uh, yes, sir.

(Dead silence. President Bush stands around with his hands on his hips, grinning)

IRSAY: (Breaking silence) Mr. President, this is Cato June, a valuable asset to our Super Bowl winning defense.

BUSH: (Shaking hands) Cato, huh? So, you’re kind of like Bruce Lee in The Green Hornet.

JUNE: (Looking around for help)

DUNGY: Uh, that was before his time.

BUSH: Oh, I see. Sure. Well, Cato, you are like a soldier on the football field. I’m not a soldier, I’m Commander-In-Chief. But, you know, we had a soldier in Afghanistan who was in…

ADVISOR: (whispering something in President Bush’s ear)

BUSH: Oh… Well, keep up the good work, Cato. I bet your teammates are looking forward to playing with you again. Perhaps you can win another Super Bowl.

ADVISOR: (whispering something in President Bush’s ear)

BUSH: Oh… Well, it certainly was a pleasure to meet you all. I wish I could spend more time with you, but I have pay a shiva call to Boris Yeltsin’s family. Do you know where I could get a good fruit cake?

Indeed we do, Mr. President. Indeed we do.

The Charm School

Pacman Jones, cornerback for the Tennessee Titans, said that NFL Commissioner Goodell is out of line with the suspension handed down. According to Jones, he was never charged with any crime and therefore feels the suspension is excessive.

The only thing Pacman has done was just get arrested five times, speak to police ten times and fail to report to the Titans two arrests in Georgia last year. A felony obstruction charge for allegedly biting (yes, you read that right: biting) a Fayetteville, Ga., police officer was delayed until May, so technically he is correct.

Call me a conspiracy theorist, but, didn’t Chris Henry, the Bengals WR—and current number 2 on the NFL’s Most Wanted List, attend the same school as Jones? Why, yes, I believe they were teammates at West Virginia.

Let’s dig a little deeper into that aspect of this University being the root cause whole NFL “bad behavior” thing, shall we? Looking at the list of NFL players that school has turned out, you can easily see my theory that WVU is breeding NFL gangstas. All the players below have attended WVU:

1. Todd Sauerbrun, P, Patriots. This guy was having steroid parties with Bobby Bonds, Mark McGwire and Tonya Harding. He claims his bulking up was from eating lots of meatloaf.
2. Marc Bulger, QB, Rams. Although this WVU thief has yet to be arrested and charged with a felony, he is known for stealing the quarterback job away from MVP Kurt Warner. At gunpoint. Using Brenda as a shield.
3. Jerry Porter, WR, Raiders. Jerry is on the list for extortion and discarding. He wouldn’t give Randy Moss his number 84 when Moss came to the Raiders unless Moss coughed up mega-bucks in blood money. Moss refused to play ball so he took number 18 instead. This year Porter changed his number from 84 to 81. That’s just plain and utter bullshit, if you ask me.
4. Anthony Becht, TE, Buccaneers. Wayne Chrebet basically made this bad-boy look like a winner. Chrebet retired, Becht moved on and now he is stealing paychecks in sunny Tampa Bay.
5. Mike Vanderjagt, K, last with the Cowboys. Idiot kicker. Need I say more?

It is my contention that Mr. Goodell better keep an eye on Dan Mozes on Draft day. The big center hails from, you guessed it—WVU. Word on the street is he is the second coming of Bugsy Siegel.

What Teams DON'T Need

The NFL Draft is about three weeks away, so rather than tell you what every team needs, as do all the big websites, I will tell you what teams don’t need.

1. Raiders: Another one-year head coach bust.
2. Lions: Another seven years of Herr Millen.
3. Browns: Another headline with a Shakespeare reference.
4. Buccaneers: A dearth of spleens.
5. Cardinals: A quarterback controversy between Matt and Brenda.
6. Redskins: A post-prime coach and a prime-rate owner.
7. Vikings: An anonymous quarterback.
8. Falcons: That Matt Schaub departure.
9. Dolphins: Nicky. Or Ricky. Or Lucy. Or Fred and Ethel.
10. Texans: An “offensive” offensive line.
11. 49ers: To be noticed.
12. Bills: To do the ol’ catch-and-release with running backs.
13. Rams: Marshall Faulk. Oh, wait. He retired. Did anyone notice?
14. Panthers: A Wrigley’s Gum endorsement offer to John Fox.
15. Steelers: Anyone to say, “Well, Bill did it this way…”
16. Packers: Six months of Favre retirement talk.
17. Jaguars: Jack Del Rio in anything but a suit.
18. Bengals: Another group of felons.
19. Titans: One felon to take the place of a group of felons.
20. Giants: An ineffective high-profile quarterback.
21. Broncos: The second-coming of John Elway.
22. Cowboys: A head coach who only knows the name of one receiver.
23. Chiefs: A player with Herman Edwards’ vote of confidence.
24. Patriots: Another Tom Brady sperm sighting.
25. Jets: Curtis Martin. Oh, wait. He retired. Didn’t he?
26. Eagles: Another Donovan McNabb mother sighting.
27. Saints: A Reggie Bush touchdown watch.
28. Ravens: Another stupid sack dance.
29. Chargers: A Norv Turner failure.
30. Bears: Another whiney linebacker.
31. Colts: Edgerrin James. Oh, wait. He retired. Or might as well have.
32. Seahawks: A group of overrated, over-paid wide receivers. Ah, shit. Too late.

Backups Up Front

The paternity findings for Anna Nicole Smith’s baby, Danielynn, will be released shortly. I want to be the first to tell you that the father is none other than New England Patriots’ QB, Tom Brady. Apparently Tommy Boy has had his, uh, hand, in everyone—I mean, everything, lately.

Tom has been so busy with women he should enlist his backup to be his wingman. By the way, can anyone tell me who Tom Brady’s backup is? If I were told the lives of my ex-wives were hanging on my answer, I couldn’t tell you (even if I knew it).

Backup quarterbacks have predominantly been faceless figures in the NFL. But there are those few who have been thrust into the starting role and excelled to superstardom. Tom Brady is one name that pops up.

Brady replaced an injured Drew Bledsoe and led the team to its first Superbowl win. Rich Gannon was a perennial backup, mostly to Elvis Grbac in Kansas City (there’s a blast from the past), but then excelled as the starter for the Raiders and led them to a Superbowl birth. And who can talk about a rags-to-riches story without mentioning Kurt Warner of the Rams.

Conversely there are those backups who get thrown into the limelight and then falter due to lack of preparation, a good surrounding team or just plain old athleticism. Any Raiders’, Redskins’, or Ravens’ QB of recent vintage comes to mind.

But then there is that one anomaly. The guy who gets his shot, has a great game or two, and then chokes in the big one. I am, of course, speaking of Dallas Cowboys’ QB, Tony Romo.

What Romo did last season was just this much short of a Cinderella story. He came in, played great, had thousands of people vote for him for the Pro Bowl, then he sucked the rest of the year, ultimately choking in the last playoff game with the Seahawks.

Tony got the limelight AND the girls. Chicks were lining up just to date him. Not just any chicks, but celebrities like Country star Carrie Underwood. The problem was that Romo was doing the Tom Brady thing, but he did it in the wrong order. First win, AND THEN get the hot famous chick. See, Tony? It isn’t that hard. (Well, maybe it was, and that was the problem.)

I also have a theory that the same people who voted for Romo for the Pro Bowl are also voting for Sanjaya on American Idol. FACT: Romo was dating a former American Idol winner.

Does anyone but me smell conspiracy?

Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word

We’ve all heard or read about the vicious Jack Tatum hit on Darryl Stingley back in 1978. One of the biggest tragic stories of the NFL came to a close with Darryl Stingley’s passing.

I find the saddest point about this whole thing is how neither one spoke to the other for almost thirty years. Tatum missed his opportunity to make amends. Of course, in his defense, maybe a 30 year window isn’t long enough to get up the courage to talk to the guy he paralyzed. It takes time to get up the courage to say, “Uh, hey, sorry about that.”

There are people out there in the NFL that say what a great guy Jack Tatum is, how his teammates loved him and he brought everything to the table on game day. That may be great, but if you are a freaking human being, show at least some sort of remorse for destroying another man’s life.

There are those of you out there that will say, “This is football. There will be injuries and some of those will be life-threatening, if not life-changing.” I agree with that statement and those other ones that say these players know what they are getting into. That is not the issue. The fact is that it is just common decency to have at least a modicum of compassion for a fallen human brother, especially when the brother fell by your own hand.

Another thing I don’t get is the people who say Tatum’s full-on hit of Stingley shouldn’t have happened in a “meaningless game.” Excuse me? Anytime someone is paralyzed for life in a sport, to me, it’s a meaningless fucking game.

The last thing I would like to point out is the dichotomic thoughts of both persons involved in this tragedy. They both had written autobiographies.

Jedi Stingley’s book is called Happy to be Alive.

Darth Tatum’s book is called Final Confessions of NFL Assassin Jack Tatum.

I gotta go now. I’m going to dust off my copy of Robert Fulghum’s book, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten.

What's In A Name?

We’ve all heard the names before: Namath, Tittle, Favre, Montana, Tarkenton. These are NFLers we know by one name. We don’t need the given name to bring up a vivid picture in our minds of who they are. Like Elvis, Charo, O.J., Liberace, or Ali, we know these famous people by a single moniker.

But, more often than not, when speaking of other elite players from the NFL, you need both names: Jerry Rice, Walter Payton, Jim Brown, Barry Sanders, etc.

Today, there are players who have similar or identical (read that forgettable) names who play completely different positions. This can get to be a tad bit confounding.

Here’s a list of some of those:

Derrick Johnson, Cornerback, CB, Atlanta Falcons
Derrick Johnson, Linebacker, LB, Kansas City Chiefs

Michael Lewis, Safety, S, San Francisco 49ers
Michael Lewis, Wide Receiver, WR, New Orleans Saints

Alex Smith, Tight end, TE, Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Alex Smith, Quarterback, QB, San Francisco 49ers

Mike Williams, Tackle, T, Jacksonville Jaguars
Mike Williams, Wide Receiver, WR, Detroit Lions

Roy Williams, Safety, S, Dallas Cowboys
Roy Williams, Wide Receiver, WR, Detroit Lions

There’s also Roydell Williams, Wide Receiver, WR, Tennessee Titans, whom, I am sure, was called “Roy” at one point in his life.

Then there are the homophones. (No, not homophobes, you idiot.) These are name that sound alike, but are spelled differently. For instance:

Donnie Jones, Punter, P, Miami Dolphins
Dahni Jones, Linebacker, LB, Philadelphia Eagles

From the speed-reading department come names like:

Bryan Johnson, Running back, RB, Chicago Bears
Bryant Johnson, Wide Receiver, WR, Arizona Cardinals

Watch out for that “t”. Sometimes they just sneak up on ya.

Speaking of Bryant—I remember hearing the tail end of a broadcast where the announcer said, “Young will return to the 49ers.” His sidekick said that Young was too old to return to the field. Immediately I thought of Steve Young and thought, “Is he crazy?” Shows you what an idiot I was. Although I still think that announcers should use both names and qualify that when speaking of the player by using his position and team.

You can see how this can get confusing and how people can make mistakes. I was reading about Adrian Peterson, Running back, RB, Chicago Bears, and immediately thought I was in a coma and missed the NFL Draft. I quickly went on-line to check. Sure enough, there it was. Adrian Peterson is projected to go to the Cleveland Browns in one mock draft I read.

If that isn’t enough to scratch your head, check this out. And I am not making this up—unlike most of the other crap I write. (Here are links to prove it, plus a screenshot in case they fixed it by the time you read this.)

http://msn.foxsports.com/nfl/player?categoryId=300165
Foxsports.com lists Chicago Bears linebacker Rod Wilson as #59. His picture is posted there—a white guy in a suit.

http://www.nfl.com/players/playerpage/552682
On NFL.com, they list Chicago Bears linebacker Rod Wilson as #64. His picture is posted as an African-American in a jersey. Both have the same birthdate.

The media and the NFL do not make mistakes. Therefore, only one conclusion is possible.

They are twins.