So the shocking news in Lubbock Texas reached it's ultimate folly today: Texas Tech has fired head coach Mike Leach. They fired him for cause. They fired him because he allegedly locked wide Receiver Adam James (son of Pony Expressman Craig James) in dark electrical closet during practice because he had a concussion. His confinement lasted 3 hours.
If so, Leach was rightly fired. Still, I find these outrageous allegations extremely hard to believe.
Current and former players on the team have criticized Adam James work ethic. They said he had a negative attitude problem, and was never known as a worker. Some even said Coach Leach was trying to hold him accountable for his behavior. Does that mean he did what they say he did? Not really. If things were that bad why lock the kid in a shed like an animal? Why not just cut the kid from the team? The cut tool is the appropriate weapon to use in these cases.
I would love to hear what Craig James has to say about this. In a carefully worded statement from the James family, the James family said this was all about player safety. That's about all.
Purportedly, Atheletic Director Gerlad Myers had a contentious contract re-negotiation with Leach early this year. Myers allegedly hated the fact that Leach wanted to interview with the University of Washington about their vacant coaching position. He did not like being held over a barrel for more money.
I find the timing extremely curious. Leach was known as a rogue-maverick. Myers described him as insubordinate. He had been prepping the team for his firing for 10 months. Now this erupts in time for the university to save $800,000 in payouts to Leach. It should be noted that Adam James did not suffer his concussion until Dec 16th. Huuuuummmmm... That's just one of those things that make you go hummmm...
I personally don't know what to think of this incident. Innocent until proven guilty is the constitutional presumption of innocence. I once worked for an asshole (Sgt. Shaeffer) in the Army who was fully capable of locking a guy in shed (or worse) if you pissed him off. I have no love for that kind. Leach seems to have none of the Shaeffer mentality of personality. I don't see any similarity in the two of them.
There is one objective thing I can say: Texas Tech prospered under Leach. They were in the hunt for the BCS Championship last season. They had a top 10 pick in the form of Michael Crabtree. They had the most exciting offense in college football... which is saying a hell of a lot. I am astounding they would fire him. This is the most shocking firing since UCLA sacked coach Harrick from the Bruins' basketball team.
Coach Spagnuolo is known as a man with very high moral and ethical standards. He has always been known as a fair and even handed guy. I doubt he would want to look at a fellow with this kind of dark cloud over his head. If Leach has done this kind of thing, I doubt the Rams would have any interest at all in him.
However, if it does turn out that Leach was fired in a money-saver, maverick-busting move, I think the Rams aught to give him serious consideration for our offensive coordinator position. God knows the University of Florida will. I love the way this guy organizes his deep-strike, high-pressure, high-speed, pass-happy offense. The spread is not ideal in the NFL, but it is certainly better than the passing attack we have now.
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Fans should not vote for and/or elect Pro-Bowlers
Once upon a time in the 1960s and 1970s, the ProBowl actually meant something. Players were ultra-proud to be elected to the ProBowl. Many more played in the game than play today. The game itself was also a better spectacle to watch than it is now.
Why? Because the players elected the players. Only the players elected each other. Players were proud to be elected by their friends and competitors. They felt this was a legitimate way to determine who was truly the best. Players wanted to appear in the game because they wanted recognition for the fact that they had been elected to the ProBowl. Do I need to remind anyone that Jack Youngblood played in the ProBowl on a broken leg? He did so immediately after playing in the Super Bowl.
The NFL front office, however, was consistently vexed by their inability to turn the ProBowl into a premier spectacle of sport MLB All-Star Game, or even the NBA All-Star game. Both of those events outshine the ProBowl in terms of viewership. There have been endless re-jiggerings of the ProBowl format to try to (somehow) connect the fans to the event.
In their infinite wisdom, the NFL decided to allow fans to elect the ProBowlers. It went to hell in a hand-basket at that point. This is how you have preposterous outcomes like 12 Chargers in the ProBowl, or 13 Cowboys. A more rational review of those rosters indicate that they were talented, but not that talented. Fans are stupid. They vote for winners. They vote for statistical category leaders. That is all. They don't necessarily vote for the best man. The best man may not be a statistical leader, and he may not be playing for a winner.
Now the NFL has decided to play the ProBowl during so-called "Dead Week"; the week before the Super Bowl. This will keep the NFL on the agenda during Dead Week, and it will make the ProBowl part of the hyper-hype before the Super Bowl, rather than the extreme afterthought afterward.
It may be a good move, but if you want to really make the ProBowl significant, do the following things:Allow only players to vote
Why? Because the players elected the players. Only the players elected each other. Players were proud to be elected by their friends and competitors. They felt this was a legitimate way to determine who was truly the best. Players wanted to appear in the game because they wanted recognition for the fact that they had been elected to the ProBowl. Do I need to remind anyone that Jack Youngblood played in the ProBowl on a broken leg? He did so immediately after playing in the Super Bowl.
The NFL front office, however, was consistently vexed by their inability to turn the ProBowl into a premier spectacle of sport MLB All-Star Game, or even the NBA All-Star game. Both of those events outshine the ProBowl in terms of viewership. There have been endless re-jiggerings of the ProBowl format to try to (somehow) connect the fans to the event.
In their infinite wisdom, the NFL decided to allow fans to elect the ProBowlers. It went to hell in a hand-basket at that point. This is how you have preposterous outcomes like 12 Chargers in the ProBowl, or 13 Cowboys. A more rational review of those rosters indicate that they were talented, but not that talented. Fans are stupid. They vote for winners. They vote for statistical category leaders. That is all. They don't necessarily vote for the best man. The best man may not be a statistical leader, and he may not be playing for a winner.
Now the NFL has decided to play the ProBowl during so-called "Dead Week"; the week before the Super Bowl. This will keep the NFL on the agenda during Dead Week, and it will make the ProBowl part of the hyper-hype before the Super Bowl, rather than the extreme afterthought afterward.
It may be a good move, but if you want to really make the ProBowl significant, do the following things:Allow only players to vote
- Allow defenders to vote only for offensive players
- Allow offensive players to vote only for defenders
- Allow special teamers to elect the special kickers, punters and specialists.
Monday, December 28, 2009
What is the Romance of the Noble Savage
The term Noble Savage first came into use back in the 1800s. It was applied to the "Gentleman of Nature", the tribal fellow, living in non-western and non-eastern societies, who knew the ways of the wilderness. Charles Dickens once wrote a satirical screed titled "The Noble Savage". The term is now associated with the Sentamentalist movement of the time.
Cultural Anthropologists go to the field to perform ethnographies on non-western civilizations. The greater their differences from our society, the better. CAs like non-western groups, who speak unknown languages, living in small, low-population societies, practicing hunting and gathering, and perhaps a bit of horticulture. If they have a wildly different religion, and different manner of reckoning kinship, so much the better.
There aren't many hunting and gathering societies left in the world. Neither are there many horticultural societies. Populations have grown. Natural resource bases have been depleted. These older, low-intensity, low-integration, human powered systems are largely untenable now. You need machines and fertilizers to feed massive populations. Population growth triggers an unavoidable process of economic intensification, political integration, and social stratification.
Still, Anthropologists try to find groups like these for study to this very day. When they do, they all-to frequently flip out and loose their minds. Frequently, they fall in love with their host/subject society. They go native in a big way. Along the path, they have a near religious conversion experience, realizing that then entire way mass-urban industrial society lives is just plain damn wrong. This is what we call the Anthropological Romance of the Noble Savage.
Holding such an opinion would be fine, if it didn't interfere with your research. All to often, this fever correlates with a very strong tendency to ignore serious problems in tribal societies. All to often, ethnographers gloss over issues because they are in love. When confronted with some of these problems, romantic ethnographers are quick to blame the incursion of Western Civ for these problems. Being in love means hyper-exaggerating the good qualities of your loved one, and being blinded to the bad.
Napoleon Chagnon tripped off a ferocious debate back in 1960s and 1970s when he suggested that the Yanomamo warriors killed each other over women. Many anthropologists could not believe that there could be any such thing as murders over sexual jealousy in The Garden of Eden. Perish the thought. Certainly, no such thing was possible. It had to be because of Western incursion on their territory, creating protien scarcity, or something like that. No, it turns out that the Yanomano, like other people around the world, also share in humanity's best reason for killing: Sexual Jealousy. As Chagnon observed, Yanomamo warriors like to optimize their inclusive fitness. This can be accomplished by killing your sexual rivals and taking their women for yourself.
My own professor at UCLA idealized the hell out of the Machiginga people of South America, an Amazonian Group he spent considerable time with. He felt that Western Civ was plain damn wrong. He said that, if he could, he would reduce population down to a few hundred thousand human beings to see if we could undo the complexity of human society, and get back to nature. When pressed, he would admit that the Machiginga had a diet low in protein, that they lived very short lives, a small scratch could turn sceptic and kill them in a short matter of days. Simple bacterial infections, that kill no one in our society, are major causes of death among the Machiginga. He would admit this, saying he did not want to idealize their lifestyle, but anyone could see that he did.
You wouldn't like to see what happens when a good drought or scarcity cycle happens in these societies. During a hard down-cycle, the Inuit Eskimo people used to send their old folks out of the camp to squat on the ice, and await the coming of the polar bears. The same was true for the Navajo, although it wasn't polar bears in their case. Nearly all of these groups practice infanticide as the Spartans did. All deformed or imperfect children are discarded in the wilderness. If you want to romanticize these societies, you better like infanticide and euthanasia.
It is irrational and anti-factual to say that (a) because they live in a state similar to the environment of evolutionary adaptedness, (b) tribal peoples, living in small, tribal, subsistence economies have a perfect way of life. Still, Hippies around the world try to claim this every day.
It is equally irrational and counter-factual to say that (a) because we live in advanced technological industrial societies, (b) we are living life in an entirely wrong manner. Still, Hippies around the world try to claim this every day.
James Cameron just added his voice to this collection. If you weren't struck by how Hippy the heart of Avatar is, you just weren't paying any attention to the story. Mr. Cameron presents you with a super-idealized group called the Navi. I doubt the !Kung/San, Yanomamo, the Inuit, or the Machiginga would measure up to this lofty ideal if you saw them clearly. Nevertheless, Cameron presents them this way, because he is making the case for rejecting established society.
The best and the most reputable authorities in the field of Cultural Anthropology guard against the Romance. It is a form of insanity and/or religious fever. A balanced view of the empirical facts will show that Western Civ isn't all bad, and hunting and gathering isn't all good. Another one of my Profs, Robert Edgerton, enraged the anthropological world when he published his magnum opus: Sick Societies. In his opening shot, he fired this line "All societies are sick, but some are sicker than others." This line blew up cultural relativism as we knew it.
Cultural Anthropologists go to the field to perform ethnographies on non-western civilizations. The greater their differences from our society, the better. CAs like non-western groups, who speak unknown languages, living in small, low-population societies, practicing hunting and gathering, and perhaps a bit of horticulture. If they have a wildly different religion, and different manner of reckoning kinship, so much the better.
There aren't many hunting and gathering societies left in the world. Neither are there many horticultural societies. Populations have grown. Natural resource bases have been depleted. These older, low-intensity, low-integration, human powered systems are largely untenable now. You need machines and fertilizers to feed massive populations. Population growth triggers an unavoidable process of economic intensification, political integration, and social stratification.
Still, Anthropologists try to find groups like these for study to this very day. When they do, they all-to frequently flip out and loose their minds. Frequently, they fall in love with their host/subject society. They go native in a big way. Along the path, they have a near religious conversion experience, realizing that then entire way mass-urban industrial society lives is just plain damn wrong. This is what we call the Anthropological Romance of the Noble Savage.
Holding such an opinion would be fine, if it didn't interfere with your research. All to often, this fever correlates with a very strong tendency to ignore serious problems in tribal societies. All to often, ethnographers gloss over issues because they are in love. When confronted with some of these problems, romantic ethnographers are quick to blame the incursion of Western Civ for these problems. Being in love means hyper-exaggerating the good qualities of your loved one, and being blinded to the bad.
Napoleon Chagnon tripped off a ferocious debate back in 1960s and 1970s when he suggested that the Yanomamo warriors killed each other over women. Many anthropologists could not believe that there could be any such thing as murders over sexual jealousy in The Garden of Eden. Perish the thought. Certainly, no such thing was possible. It had to be because of Western incursion on their territory, creating protien scarcity, or something like that. No, it turns out that the Yanomano, like other people around the world, also share in humanity's best reason for killing: Sexual Jealousy. As Chagnon observed, Yanomamo warriors like to optimize their inclusive fitness. This can be accomplished by killing your sexual rivals and taking their women for yourself.
My own professor at UCLA idealized the hell out of the Machiginga people of South America, an Amazonian Group he spent considerable time with. He felt that Western Civ was plain damn wrong. He said that, if he could, he would reduce population down to a few hundred thousand human beings to see if we could undo the complexity of human society, and get back to nature. When pressed, he would admit that the Machiginga had a diet low in protein, that they lived very short lives, a small scratch could turn sceptic and kill them in a short matter of days. Simple bacterial infections, that kill no one in our society, are major causes of death among the Machiginga. He would admit this, saying he did not want to idealize their lifestyle, but anyone could see that he did.
You wouldn't like to see what happens when a good drought or scarcity cycle happens in these societies. During a hard down-cycle, the Inuit Eskimo people used to send their old folks out of the camp to squat on the ice, and await the coming of the polar bears. The same was true for the Navajo, although it wasn't polar bears in their case. Nearly all of these groups practice infanticide as the Spartans did. All deformed or imperfect children are discarded in the wilderness. If you want to romanticize these societies, you better like infanticide and euthanasia.
It is irrational and anti-factual to say that (a) because they live in a state similar to the environment of evolutionary adaptedness, (b) tribal peoples, living in small, tribal, subsistence economies have a perfect way of life. Still, Hippies around the world try to claim this every day.
It is equally irrational and counter-factual to say that (a) because we live in advanced technological industrial societies, (b) we are living life in an entirely wrong manner. Still, Hippies around the world try to claim this every day.
James Cameron just added his voice to this collection. If you weren't struck by how Hippy the heart of Avatar is, you just weren't paying any attention to the story. Mr. Cameron presents you with a super-idealized group called the Navi. I doubt the !Kung/San, Yanomamo, the Inuit, or the Machiginga would measure up to this lofty ideal if you saw them clearly. Nevertheless, Cameron presents them this way, because he is making the case for rejecting established society.
The best and the most reputable authorities in the field of Cultural Anthropology guard against the Romance. It is a form of insanity and/or religious fever. A balanced view of the empirical facts will show that Western Civ isn't all bad, and hunting and gathering isn't all good. Another one of my Profs, Robert Edgerton, enraged the anthropological world when he published his magnum opus: Sick Societies. In his opening shot, he fired this line "All societies are sick, but some are sicker than others." This line blew up cultural relativism as we knew it.
Sunday, December 27, 2009
So I am compiling my Best Movies of the Decade list
So for some reason, everybody seems to be publishing their Best Movies of the Decade List. This despite the fact that the decade will not be officially over for another year. Anyhow, I thought I would join the fray. My list currently contains about 70 movies, and it isn't quite ready. I will publish it when it is pruned and blossomed.
Just to prep you for the list, here are some of my criteria:
- Art films need not apply
- Emotional Meltdowns need not apply
- Inspirational movies need not apply
- Chick Flicks need not apply
- Most Oscar winners are suspect
- Heavy preference is given to Sci-Fi
- Strong preference is given to animation
- Horror is considered, but frowned upon
- In short, this is a guy's list of entertaining movies.
- I am not doing this to please he academy.
- My objective is to compile a reliable list of good entertainment for guys like me.
- I want any ordinary guy to be able to pick an item of this list, see, and be glad he did.
70 over a decade produces and average of about 7 per year if you count the year 2000 (which you should not). When you stop to think about it, that really isn't very much entertainment for guys like me. An average of 7 movies per year leaves us high and dry for good entertainment much of the year. No wonder we watch so much football.
So today is a bitter sweet day for the Rams
With just 1 game left on the schedule, my Rams remain a 1 victory team. We won against Detroit a long time ago, back on week 8 of the season. Together with unexpected upset victories by Tampa and Cleveland, we are now mathematically guaranteed to win the 1st pick overall in the 2010 Draft. This signifies that we are the worst team in the league.
As the clock wore down in the Cardinals victory today, the discussion was not about the Cardinals prospects in the playoffs. I found that odd. Rather, the men wanted to discus what the Rams would do with that #1 pick. Would we take Ndamukong Suh? Would we deal the pick? What the hell are the Rams going to do? They seemed intensely fascinated by this question. They seemed to believe the Rams could get some serious ammo by dealing the pick; 3 picks specifically. They seem to believe that there will be several serious minded suitors.
I sure hope so. Last year, we couldn't pay the Jets to take our #2 pick.
I already blogged on this subject, because I had a suspicion things would work out this way. You know how I feel about this subject: Defense is not our area of greatest need. Offense is our are of desperate need. As much as I would like to have a killer commando like Suh, I do not think we can afford to use our pick in this manner.
If someone is willing to load us with 2 first rounders for the top pick, we must take the deal. Those picks should turn into Russel Okung and Tim Tebow. We need to fix our horrendous offense. We have no chance of winning in 2010 unless we do.
Avatar and the Athropological Romance of the Noble Savage
I majored in Anthropology at UCLA. I graduated Magna with departmental honors. I was elected to the Golden Key Honor society for packing a 3.925 GPA during my Junior year, but who brags about these thing?
I only mention this because Avatar has hit the scene. Overall, it is a dandy. It's one hell of a movie. James Cameron never fails. I sat engrossed 160 minutes (2 hours 40 minutes), and never even got up to go to the restroom. Of course, my busted knee would have made that a tad painful, but I always take at least one break during a long movie. I generally hate long movies. The longer you run, the lower your grade will usually be. Not this time. Avatar flows. It has great rythm and pace. It keeps you locked on. There isn't any loose, spare-change rattling around in this movie. It stays on point.
At the core, Avatar is an example of the Anthropological Romance of the Noble Savage. This is a complex of fallacious reasoning which ethnographers are extremely prone to fall into. I am sure you have seen many examples of this story form. A man or woman goes from a technologically advanced Western Industrialized Society to a tribal society of hunters and gatherers. They are anything but industrialized or technologically advanced. They live close to nature. This Westerner lives among The People; and their self-identified corporate name usually boils down to The People. He gets in tune with nature for the first time in his life. He loves it. He goes native in a big way. Then he has a near religious revelation that entire way advanced civilization is living is just plain damn wrong. He then defends The People against the incursion of Western Civ.
If you have seen any of the following movies, you know what I am talking about:
So what happens in this movie? Sam Worthington plays a crippled Marine named Jake Sully. Jake becomes an accidental ehtnographer, as he is embeded by the military industrial complex into a alien society on an alien world name Pandora. He must learn about the Navi (sorry for omitting all your diacritical bullshit) and report back to his miliary master. Oh did I mention he is driving the body of a Navi warrior throughout this process? I guess you figured that out during the trailer.
Jake goes native in a big way. He becomes trusted. He falls in love with the daughter of the chief. She falls in love with him also. They fuck (once). This really puts the zap on his head. When the miltary decides to destroy the tree home of the Navi to acquire a precious rare mineral, Jake has to take up arms against his species. In so doing, he turns out be The One, The Messiah, and The Golden Child.
The whole thing is very powerful and effective argument against the destruction of the Amazonian Rain Forrests (jungles) here on good old planet Earth. For this reason it also resembles The Emerald Forrest, but the story structure is quite different. The ultimate point is the same.
This is all very entertaining and I give it 97 out of 100 points. That's a damn high score. You gotta see this one. Pretty awesome.
So what about the fallacious Romance of the Noble Savage that we Anthropologists are so prone too? Let's talk about that next time, in my next blog entry.
I only mention this because Avatar has hit the scene. Overall, it is a dandy. It's one hell of a movie. James Cameron never fails. I sat engrossed 160 minutes (2 hours 40 minutes), and never even got up to go to the restroom. Of course, my busted knee would have made that a tad painful, but I always take at least one break during a long movie. I generally hate long movies. The longer you run, the lower your grade will usually be. Not this time. Avatar flows. It has great rythm and pace. It keeps you locked on. There isn't any loose, spare-change rattling around in this movie. It stays on point.
At the core, Avatar is an example of the Anthropological Romance of the Noble Savage. This is a complex of fallacious reasoning which ethnographers are extremely prone to fall into. I am sure you have seen many examples of this story form. A man or woman goes from a technologically advanced Western Industrialized Society to a tribal society of hunters and gatherers. They are anything but industrialized or technologically advanced. They live close to nature. This Westerner lives among The People; and their self-identified corporate name usually boils down to The People. He gets in tune with nature for the first time in his life. He loves it. He goes native in a big way. Then he has a near religious revelation that entire way advanced civilization is living is just plain damn wrong. He then defends The People against the incursion of Western Civ.
If you have seen any of the following movies, you know what I am talking about:
- Farewell to the King (1989)
- Dances with Wolves (1990)
- The Emerald Forest (1985)
- Little Big Man (1970)
- A Man Called Horse (1970)
- Farewell to the King + Aliens = Avatar
So what happens in this movie? Sam Worthington plays a crippled Marine named Jake Sully. Jake becomes an accidental ehtnographer, as he is embeded by the military industrial complex into a alien society on an alien world name Pandora. He must learn about the Navi (sorry for omitting all your diacritical bullshit) and report back to his miliary master. Oh did I mention he is driving the body of a Navi warrior throughout this process? I guess you figured that out during the trailer.
Jake goes native in a big way. He becomes trusted. He falls in love with the daughter of the chief. She falls in love with him also. They fuck (once). This really puts the zap on his head. When the miltary decides to destroy the tree home of the Navi to acquire a precious rare mineral, Jake has to take up arms against his species. In so doing, he turns out be The One, The Messiah, and The Golden Child.
The whole thing is very powerful and effective argument against the destruction of the Amazonian Rain Forrests (jungles) here on good old planet Earth. For this reason it also resembles The Emerald Forrest, but the story structure is quite different. The ultimate point is the same.
This is all very entertaining and I give it 97 out of 100 points. That's a damn high score. You gotta see this one. Pretty awesome.
So what about the fallacious Romance of the Noble Savage that we Anthropologists are so prone too? Let's talk about that next time, in my next blog entry.
Thursday, December 24, 2009
The Rams and Ndamukong Suh
So I just finished reading a piece in which a Florida sports writer claims that the Bucs will not lay down to get Ndamukong Suh. The tone of the piece is glum, frustrated, and irritated. Such is life with so much loosing.
Personally, I think we (the Rams) aught to be perfectly willing to deal the pick, or Ndamukong Suh himself, which ever works out. If the Bucs want him, let's make a deal. This is intended as no slight against Suh, who I regard as the best defensive tackle prospect since Mean Joe, and a true piece of championship material, but I just don't think he is the man we need. All else being equal, I would love to have him, but all else is not equal.
Our defense is very good, and there are a boat load of linemen in free agency this year, many of whom would like to play in Coach Spags' 3 and 4 defenseive end system. Our defense would be clearly statistically solid if our offense would stop setting them up for failure. I can't count how many times our horrendous offense has setup the other team on a short field, thus setting our defense for failure. Our offense is absolutely wretched. I mean totally puke-nasty, disgusting, rotten, bad, aweful. Our offense almost couldn't be worse.
Clearly, we are in need of an offensive overhaul, and I do mean overhaul. We are in absolute rebuilding mode offensively. In our skilled positions I see only two survivors: Steve Jackson and Donnie Avery. On our OL, I see only two survivors: Jason Smith and Jason Brown. This means 7 of 11 starting positions need to be replaced. The key focus has to be on the omni-important QB position.
Some of our offensive players should stick around, but not as starters. Danny Amendola should become our Steve Tasker, if he isn't already. He can make a good #3 reciever, maybe he can even be a Wes Welker as so many have suggested. I do like him. Daniel Fells is a good second tight end. He should stick around. Adam Goldberg should remain as a backup lineman.
To acquire 7 new starters you need both free agents and good solid draft picks. This has to be an offense-focused draft and free-agency. I think 4 + 4 would be a good formula. The top 4 picks need to be offensive players. Our top 4 free-agents need to be offensive players. Who should those men be?
This is why I once again call on Mr. Devany to fire young Pat Shurmur. He just wasn't the right choice in the first place. He wasn't prepared for the job, and he plays an old-fashioned offense that no longer works: A run biased West Coast. Neither Shurmur's short passing game, nor the run component are really effective anymore. By that I mean it is an invalid approach, not a question of personnel. We need to restore The Greatest Show on Turf. The focus has to be on exact routes for WRs, the use of motion and formation to construct mismatches, and scoring with the big play. For this job I would summon Trent Green, and give him control. I would suggest Mike Martz, but I just don't think we can give him a demotion on a team where he was once the Head Coach.
Personally, I think we (the Rams) aught to be perfectly willing to deal the pick, or Ndamukong Suh himself, which ever works out. If the Bucs want him, let's make a deal. This is intended as no slight against Suh, who I regard as the best defensive tackle prospect since Mean Joe, and a true piece of championship material, but I just don't think he is the man we need. All else being equal, I would love to have him, but all else is not equal.
Our defense is very good, and there are a boat load of linemen in free agency this year, many of whom would like to play in Coach Spags' 3 and 4 defenseive end system. Our defense would be clearly statistically solid if our offense would stop setting them up for failure. I can't count how many times our horrendous offense has setup the other team on a short field, thus setting our defense for failure. Our offense is absolutely wretched. I mean totally puke-nasty, disgusting, rotten, bad, aweful. Our offense almost couldn't be worse.
Clearly, we are in need of an offensive overhaul, and I do mean overhaul. We are in absolute rebuilding mode offensively. In our skilled positions I see only two survivors: Steve Jackson and Donnie Avery. On our OL, I see only two survivors: Jason Smith and Jason Brown. This means 7 of 11 starting positions need to be replaced. The key focus has to be on the omni-important QB position.
Some of our offensive players should stick around, but not as starters. Danny Amendola should become our Steve Tasker, if he isn't already. He can make a good #3 reciever, maybe he can even be a Wes Welker as so many have suggested. I do like him. Daniel Fells is a good second tight end. He should stick around. Adam Goldberg should remain as a backup lineman.
To acquire 7 new starters you need both free agents and good solid draft picks. This has to be an offense-focused draft and free-agency. I think 4 + 4 would be a good formula. The top 4 picks need to be offensive players. Our top 4 free-agents need to be offensive players. Who should those men be?
- Trent Williams or Russel Okung
- Tim Tebow
- Dexter McCluster
- Seyi Ajiratutu
- Brandon Marshall
- Jahri Evans
- David Baas
- Deuce Lutui
This is why I once again call on Mr. Devany to fire young Pat Shurmur. He just wasn't the right choice in the first place. He wasn't prepared for the job, and he plays an old-fashioned offense that no longer works: A run biased West Coast. Neither Shurmur's short passing game, nor the run component are really effective anymore. By that I mean it is an invalid approach, not a question of personnel. We need to restore The Greatest Show on Turf. The focus has to be on exact routes for WRs, the use of motion and formation to construct mismatches, and scoring with the big play. For this job I would summon Trent Green, and give him control. I would suggest Mike Martz, but I just don't think we can give him a demotion on a team where he was once the Head Coach.
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