The 1st NFL Awards Show: Katy Perry and Tim Tebow Part 2

So, I broke 100% sports blackout last night to watch the first-ever academe awards... errr... NFL Awards Show.  It was worth it.  They didn't mention the dreadful Stuper-Bowel we have coming up today (much).  I am still boycotting the Stuper Bowel this year.

The worthwhile moment came a scant 15 minutes into the show.  Alec Baldwin attempted to perform a 'Tebow' on stage.  It didn't work out so well.  He didn't understand the pattern he was supposed to run.  Tim came up on stage (he had front row seats) and corrected Alec's form.  Alec accepted this coaching gracefully.  It was a touching Leo-Aries moment.  Fire relations are good.

The very next moment, Katy Perry is walking on stage to present the NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year.  Yep, that's right, Katy Perry is the first ever presenter of an award in the history of the show...  and she's walking on stage right now... and Tebow is in the front row.

It's times like these when an anxious dad grows concerned about his son's mental health and safety.  I am sure Tim's mama was concerned as well.  I was just watching Monster Bug Wars last week.  Lots of scorpions on that show.  How about a Lion versus a Scorpion?

On a serious note.  Katy did not have her usual radiance and shine.  She's usually beaming and gleaming.  Her magnetic pull is usually overwhelming.  Not so last night.  Her energy level betrayed a case of serious depression, although she put up a good front.   I am sure she's pretty wiped-out by her divorce.  Of course, I don't like that.  It hurts to see her hurting.

They say it is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.  It must be the masculine signs that coined that expression.  Not true for the femme signs.  Loose a love and you are absolutely writhing in agony.  It's like getting ripped in half.

After reading a bit from the teleprompter, and showing the video clips, Katy turns towards Tim and says "Hi Tim.  My parents say 'hi'!"


Everybody fell-out laughing over that one.  You know why.  I know why.  I know that you know.  You know that I know.  You know that I know that you know, etc.  This is lot more than her parents being pastors, and his being missionaries.  You know Katy's mamma was trying to do a setup recently.

Call me stupid.  Call me foolish.  Call me irresponsible.  Call me a dreamer, but I couldn't help but feel responsible for this uncomfortable event last night.  I was pretty dang uncomfortable during these moments.  My hair was on fire.

I have not read many comments about Katy Perry in NFL-related blogs.  Actually, that number is zero. The NFL high-command might not even know Katy Perry exists if it were not for me making a big deal out of her for the past two years.  I am the only NFL Blogger I know of actively describing Katy Perry as a knock-out bombshell.

Of course, Roger Goodell is a Pisces guy, so he's going to react strongly to Katy.  I am sure she blew his frickin' brains out the second he saw her, the same way she did to me.

Then, of course, I blogged about it when Katy's mamma tried to do the setup...  My Google stats say that I got several hundred reads on that blog post.  That's not too bad for a small-time amateur like me.  The NFL can't help but try to take advantage of a piece of pure pop-platinum like that.

A word of warning to you, my son:  This was no accidental happen-chance event last night.  Scorpios are control freaks.  They are way-into power and control.  If she hadn't liked her mamma's comments, she would not have been seen within 1,000 miles of the awards show last night.  Her little hiya was only half-joking.  That little bump-event last night was a check-out.  She never would have gone along with the gag if she didn't want something out of it.

Dudes often miss femme signals because women are incredibly obscurantist about their signals.  Scorpios are even more secretive and obscurantist.

You can fool some of the people some of the time, but never me.

I warn you, my son, you are almost totally incompatible with this woman.  She is just chemically different from you.  She's a great woman, but not for you.  You are the best guy around, but not for her.  There is a monumental fire-water conflict brewing here.  It didn't look like you were taking the bait, and that's a good thing.  It would be a real sad thing if you got together and disappointed the hell out of each other.


Just in case you were thinking about it, consider the lyrics of this song well.

Karina Smirnoff loves Tim Tebow

According to the New York Daily News, Karina Smirnoff wants to dance with Tim Tebow.  She says Tebow would be a worthy successor to the NFL's panoply of former contestants on Dancing with the Stars.  This includes such super-luminaries as Emmitt Smith, Jerry Rice, Kurt Warner, Hines Ward, Warren Sapp, Jason Taylor, and Lawrence Taylor.

You can read about it here.

Karina took it a bit further than that. She declared that all she wants for her birthday is to see Tim Tebow dance on Dancing with the Stars.  Incidentally, her birthday is 1/2/1978.  She just turned 34.

I have to warn you my son, Karina has big a thing for you.  You may like her as well.  My computer indicates that the two of you have some pretty hot synastry.  This is despite the fact that she is a Capricorn and you are a Leo.  It won't be that pleasant, but there is some serious heat there.

Based on these numbers, it's pretty clear that she intends to cougar you.  As a Virgo guy, I extend to you my sincerest envy.  I would jump on Karina Smirnoff without one instant of hesitation.  But this is to be expected.  I am a Virgo guy, and she is a Capricorn lady.  That's a natural.  Furthermore, she's a perfect trine (120 degrees) away from me.  That's the best of all angles.

Capricorn and Leo?  Not the most normal match up.  It's a 150 degree angle known as the inconjunct.  This means you two have nothing in common.    Still, you two have some lovely scores.  Much better than those of Katie Perry.

Well son, you may be unfamiliar with this breed of woman, so let me give you the scouting report.  Don't under-estimate the power, aggression and strategic cunning of the Capricorn woman.  Capricorn is a femme earth sign, but it is the greatest of the cardinal leadership signs.  These are super-disciplined, driven competitors, who work relentlessly to get what they want.  They are accustomed to winning.

You need to think about a female version of Don Shula, Chuck Noll, Sean Payton, Jim and John Harbaugh. All those guys are Capricorn coaches.  If she coaches you, she will use this style and approach.

Believe me, I would accept coaching from a woman like this, but I am a natural-born sucker for a Capricorn woman.

Still, it would be best for you to let your ribs heal up and spend every waking moment doing quarterback drills with John Elway.  It would be ill-advised to allow this delicious, delectable, scrumptious, delightful temptress to divert your attentions from your primary mission this off season.

The Catch III

Well, that was the best damn contest I have seen in a long time.  In case you missed it, the 49ers just defeated the Saints 36-32.  The game winning play was loaded with types and shadows of playoff victories past for the 49ers.

With 9 seconds left on the clock and the 49ers trailing 32-30, Alex Smith took a quick drop and nailed Vernon Davis over the middle, at the goal-line.  Davis was hit immediately, but held onto the football, falling forward into the endzone for the game-winning touchdown.

It looked almost exactly like the play Steve Young & Terrel Owens executed to defeat Brett Favre and the Packers once upon a time in the playoffs.  Vernon Davis came off the field crying, almost exactly as Terrel Owens did.  They called Young & Owns play "The Catch II".  This was named after the famous Joe Montana to Dwight Clark play that won the 1981/82 NFC Championship game for the 49ers.

If that is the case, then this Smith to Davis play should become known as "The Catch III".

By simply taking you through the winning play, I have short-changed the drama of the game.  34 points scored in the 4th quarter.  Four lead changes in the final four minutes.  Multiple 2-minute drives executed well by both QBs.  It was a struggle all the way. This was one hell of a battle.  I am sure we will be seeing it on the NFL Network this Monday night.  It's already a classic; an instant classic.  The fans are currently ranking this game a 96 on scale of 1 to 100.  That score may go up.

So the 49ers go on to the NFC Championship Game, presumably in Green Bay, but we better not count our chickens before they're hatched.  This game, in itself, was a shocking upset.  Most of us did not believe the 49ers could score enough to win.  A very similar doubt hangs over the Giants.  They may prove us wrong also.  If so, these 49ers will host the NFC Championship game at Candlestick next week.

For me the most amazing moment came before the 49ers first 2-minute drive.  My buddy Colin was sweating bullets, saying "I wish we had Tebow."  I told him, "Maybe it's better that you don't.  With four minutes to grind down, you need to run this drive slow."

The 49ers did not run slow.  The 49ers went down the field based on two big plays.  Alex Smith nailed Vernon Davis on the bomb.  Then, showing shades of the Zone-Read Spread-Option he and Tebow both ran in college, Alex Smith ran the QB Sweep to his left out an empty-backfield shotgun formation.  He went 28 yards for the touchdown.

What was that about Tim Tebow?  Let's remember, Alex Smith was doing the ZRSO thing before Tebow was.

What is this world coming too?  QB's running the football out of the spread for playoff winning scores in the NFL.  Dogs and cats living together in sin!  It must be the end of the world.  The Maya were right, weren't they?

The Hall of Fame Game has been officially canceled

Well, well, well, son of a bitch in hell. We have the first [and hopefully the last] casualty of this long-hot summer lockout. My Rams will not play the Bears in the Hall of Fame Game in Canton Ohio. The 2011 Hall of Fame Game has been officially canceled. That link comes straight off the official NFL Website.

I suspected that this was going to happen when they failed to come up with the document Wednesday. This was also complicated by the continuing schism inside the player's camp regarding whether anti-trust litigation should go forward or be put to sleep. We heard enough reports regarding Wednesday being the drop-dead date for the HOF Game that I expected this announcement today.

I can't tell you I'm not disappointed. This sucks for Marhall Faulk, and for all the fans who view the HOF Game as the unofficial start of the bacchanalia we know as football season. If memory serves, this is the first time the HOF game has ever been canceled. In the prior two work-stoppages(1982 and 1987), play wasn't halted until the regular season was already in progress.

On the other hand, I am glad that my poorly conditioned, non-warm and un-stretched Rams won't suffer a slew of injuries in a bad scrimmage that won't mean anything on the official books. Believe me, I get it. I totally get it. This is probably for the best in the long run.

Throughout the course of this summer, we have heard a constant mantra from both the NFL Network and ESPN: as long as we settle this thing before any cancellations happen, no one will even remember that there was a lockout 3 years from now. Conversely, if games are canceled, there will be a collective memory, and there will be a backlash.

We'll have to wait and see. This isn't a good thing, but it is only the first preseason game. We shouldn't hit the panic button just yet.

Rich Eisen was close to flipping out yesterday when the baby wasn't born just yet. I think his (very inside) sources warned him that the HOF Game was at death's door. I think he was very concerned about the collective memory of this affair. Rightly so.

The good news is that the owners have approved the new deal. Now we just need the players to do the same thing. Let's hope that the more fractious members will stand down, and the anti-trust lawsuits can be put to sleep for the duration.

As much as I would like to see Vincent Jackson a free agent (the Rams' very last shot at getting a franchise receiver this season), I would like to see some actual football games this year even more. A free agent Vincent Jackson isn't going to do the 2011 Rams much good if the 2011 season is held hostage by anti-trust litigation.

Deep-offseason Incendiaries

Intro

It’s against my policy to comment on the NFL during a deep-offseason lockout. Still, the NFL Network managed to come up with an incendiary last night that will get me to break policy. If I didn’t know better, I would swear that the writers at the NFL Network crafted a flaming arrow specifically designed to flush me out.

Which Heisman winning QB will have the most wins in 2011?

So the question was put to us: Which Heisman winning QB will have the most wins in 2011?

• Tim Tebow
• Sam Bradford
• Carson Palmer

Early on, Sam Bradford was leading at 55% of the vote. By the end of the show, Tim Tebow had run away with it, leading by 88%. Carson Palmer had just 1% of the vote. This is all beautifully designed to trigger all kinds of controversy, especially with a guy like me.

Unfucking the question

First of all we to do quite a bit of straightening out before we can approach this question:

1. Quarterbacks don’t win games. Teams do.
2. Football isn’t fucking baseball. This is a team sport involving actual athletes.
3. Carson Palmer has retired. How can you put him on the list?
4. The question should be rephrased for accuracy: Who will win more games, the Rams or the Broncos? This is the correct way to state the question

4. The question should be rephrased for accuracy: Who will win more games, the Rams or the Broncos? This is the correct way to state the question

88% say the Broncos will win more games than the Rams

If so, this will be a solid step forward for the Broncos, and a significant step back for the Rams. The vote, in itself, is a hell of a referendum on Billy Devaney’s pathetic excuse for a draft. Believe me, if I happen to see that guy, I’m going to break his nose… and his legs.

You might argue that this vote is due to the greater popularity of the Broncos vs. the Rams with general public. You could argue that this vote is due to the greater popularity of Tim Tebow over Sam Bradford with the general public. You might argue that this vote came from impartial observers who simply feel that the Broncos have an easy schedule and the Rams have a tough schedule.

No matter how you slice it, Devaney did not develop much confidence in the general public with his most recent crappy draft. The public would not feel emboldened to make such a comment if we had had a good draft.

Stuck on the fence

Ordinarily, this is the sort of question I would not comment on. It’s sorta like asking Archie who is better: Peyton or Eli. As you all know, I have declared that Tim Tebow is the son I never had. I am still sore that my Rams passed on him. As you know, all Ram-fans have pretty well adopted Sam Bradford. This includes me.

The Rams are my 31-32 year obsession. The Broncos have long been a favorite of mine, but especially now that they have Tim Tebow. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t chose to comment on such a question.

Do I think it is possible for the Broncos to win more games than the Rams? Sure it’s possible. For the lack of one Mike Pouncey, Sam Bradford could get injured and miss most of the year. I would hate to see the outcome of that season. John Fox could do a stellar job of re-assembling that Bronco defense, and you might see them win 7 or 9 games this season.

Do I think any of these things are likely? Not likely, but not precisely remote possibilities either. The 2011 season could unfold this way.

Incidentally, did you see the look or Roger Goodell's face?

Just a quick hit before I get out the door to go to work.

Did you get a clear look at Roger Goodell's face as he exited the court building yesterday? He looked like someone had kicked him in the balls with an iron boot, and then hit him with a vicious upper-cut to the jaw. That was a look of profound distress, like he was trying to shake off one hell of a hit.

I am not exactly sure who instigated the current labor strife. I don't know if it was the owners who pushed this on the Commish, or if it was the Commish who had the bright idea and proposed it to the owners. In any case, the strategy is not working. The NFL has already lost it's lockout insurance policy from the networks, and now the players have basically defeated the lockout.

I think this has to be viewed as a crisis point for management. Not that it will last forever, but we could have a temporary blast of absolute baseball free agency that could see marquee players like Peyton Manning moving around at NASA moon-shot prices.

If this whole adventure was designed to peel back some labor costs, you just might have another thing coming. This is a very good object lesson in Conservatism. This is the doctrine of unforeseen consequences come home to roost. Don't upset a delicate financial balance when you have one. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. Don't sew to the wind.

These guys sewed to the wind, and now they are going to reap the whirlwind in the next 72 hours. Folks, all hell is going to break loose when the 8th Circuit orders the injunctive relief to be implemented.

The Mutinous Rabble

Intro

Last night, whilst running a few errands, I noticed that head coaches on the hot seat, on fire, and inflames were the major themes of the evening on Sports Talk Radio. This was also the rage on the NFL Network. It looks like we are preparing for a firestorm of firings in the coming week. Mark Clayton of ESPN says 10-11 coaches will fall in total by the end of this week. That means about 33% of the teams in the league will fire a head coach.

I hate to toot my own horn, but I was forecasting this more than a month ago.

Mike Singletary fired

So the other shoe has dropped and Mike Singletary has been fired. I say fired in the past tense because they did the job on him last night, not after this week’s final game. When I saw this news, I was once again struck dumb by the horrendous turn around in the 49er organization this season.

At the beginning of the season, the 49ers were expected to enjoy a cup-cake walk to the NFC West title, and Mike Singletary was the face of the franchise. Everywhere you drove in the SF bay area, including San Jose, Mike Singletary’s face was visible on some bill board or poster somewhere. It wasn’t always a 49er advertisement, but it usually was. Mike was the super star of the team, and the reason to believe in a turn-around.

Now there are broken dreams and flying machines laying in pieces on the ground. The turnaround came, but it went in the wrong direction. There will be a new GM and a new head coach in San Francisco soon. The GM will be hired first, and that GM will select a coach. We’ll see if this turns out to be the Big Tuna or someone else.

The 49er Problems are deep and chemical

I live in the NFC West. I have been a Ram fan for more than 30 years now. I keep a close watch on the 49ers. My best buddy in life happens to a 49er fan. This is a biting irony, I know. I observe the 49ers very closely, in the same way that the CIA used to keep surveillance on the KGB. I know these guys pretty well. They are the prime enemy. Know yourself and know your enemy is the saying,

What I say to you now, I say in a spirit of scientific objectivity, not spite. The 49ers problems are a lot worse than Singletary or the QB situation. Further, I would question whether Singletary was a problem at all. You may have just fired a non-problem, even a solution provider.

Most would reply that Singletary lost control of his ship, and the 49ers became a rudderless shipwreck as the season went along. I don’t quite see it that way. I think Singletary had a mutinous rabble on his hands, and they took the ship from him. Yes, he probably mishandled an already terrible quarterback situation, but this was not the key to 49er defeat. He could have handled the QBs well, and the 49er Bust-Collective would have lost games anyway.

The key to 49er defeat is a collection of undisciplined, strong-willed divas on offense, who want to do what they want to do, and don’t get along with each in the process. That offense was a rabble. You only need to witness the conflicts that have occurred recurred between Frank Gore, Vernon Davis and Michael Crabtree to see what I am talking about. This group has no chemistry together. Surely it was never this way with Joe Montana, Jerry Rice and Roger Craig. Surely, it was not this way with Steve Young, Jerry Rice and Ricky Waters. Waters was a Diva elsewhere, but not in SF. Certainly, this internal conflict doesn’t make it easy to succeed as a QB with the 49ers, even if you have a good candidate.

Then there is the grand and sweeping problem of the 49er Bust Collective. During Sunday’s game, you had not one but two all-out bust #1 overall draft pick QBs, sitting on the bench, backing up a late-round, once-cut QB who was starting. Alex Smith, David Carr, Troy Smith… What a mess. Of course, the key issue here is that the 49ers have wasted 6 years waiting for Alex Smith to come around and bear fruit. It ain’t going to happen, so it is time to move on. It was really time to move on two years ago, but 49er organization has been very stubborn about giving up on Alex Smith. It cost them dearly over the last several years.

Now for the billion dollar question: If a leader as tough and single-minded as Singletary could not control that offensive rabble, then who can? I don’t think it can be done. The rabble, as currently constituted, will not be controlled. This is the problem the 49er organization needs to cogitate during the next several weeks while they are selecting a coach. You have had two highly professional and highly respected head coaches in a row in Mike Nolan and Mike Singletary. You even had Mike Martz in there for a time, and no man has successfully controlled that rabble yet.

Some, like Colin Cowherd would pile on the blame on the QB situation. Respectfully, I don’t think so. Certainly your Quarterback problems are terrible, but 49er problems won’t end with the acquisition of a franchise QB.

You can trade for the #1 pick and select Andrew Luck. You can hire Jim Harbaugh also. I doubt that will change things in 2011… if there is a 2011. No, the problem is lousy offensive chemistry, and not so great defensive chemistry. Certainly the defense is way ahead of the offense, and more talented also, but will they continue to be without Mike Singletary? I wouldn’t bet on it. I expect the offensive chemistry to remain lousy and the defense to get worse. We’ll see what happens.

Respectfully, you should consider dismantling your offensive unit, with the exception of the offensive line. If I were the new boss, I would release Alex Smith, David Carr, and Troy Smith. I would trade Frank Gore for anything I might get for him. I would try to acquire a ransom for Vernon Davis and Michael Crabtree. I would assemble as many picks as possible and do a full-rebuild in 2011. I would clean house on the offense side and see what I can do, rebuilding around a new QB.

Knowing them, they will select a QB #1 overall. I wouldn’t do that. I would look for Jake Locker later in the 1^st round, or maybe the 2^nd. I wouldn’t put all my eggs in one basket. I would distribute my picks around all the offensive skill positions. I would use my several picks to try to reconstruct and reform that offense completely. I would also consider restoring the West Coast Offense, which seems to work best in your home stadium conditions at Candlestick.

I would try to hire a good 3-4 coordinator, perhaps Wade Phillips, and leave the defense intact.

Rough ride ahead

Any which way you slice it, the die is cast. The 49ers are going to look like the 29ers next year. I think it is going to be a bust-up and rebuild situation. Certainly, any man willing to take on these problems will want the authority to fix it and fix it good. Any way you slice it, the 49ers should be in for a bumpy ride next season. I would expect it to get worse before it gets better.

The current epoch of 49er history can be compared to the early-to-mid 1970s 49ers. Certainly, those were not bad teams. Only a couple of monumental performances by Roger Staubach kicked those guys out of the playoffs. Then they blew up the ship, had a couple of really bad years with O.J. Simpson and Jim Plunkett before building a history with Bill Walsh and Joe Montana.

Right now, the 49ers are at the end of the mid-1970s.

All of this bodes well for the Rams

The augurs say this omen portends good things for the Rams. The Cardinals have landed. The 49ers, who looked poised for a good epoch, are burning as we speak. The Seahawks are still a franchise QB and some change away from competition. You can’t imagine my surprise as I look at things and realize that we might well be the favorite to win the division next year… if there is a next year.

The Assassin has died...

Requiem for Jack Tatum... I knew him, Horatio.

I was never much of a book reader as a youth or an adult. I greatly prefer practical technical manuals which instruct me in the ways of doing things. Novels, Bios, inspirational, self-help: It's a bunch of rubbish from my perspective. I know people read for entertainment. I find that notion extremely strange. That ain't entertainment from my point of view. It just isn't fun.

With that said, I read "They Call me Assassin" when I was a 14 year old youth. This was right around the time it was published. This book was Jack Tatum's first autobiography, written around the time the Raiders traded him to the Oilers. It might have been a year old. I was settling into my course of becoming a nose tackle around that time, and I felt it would be informative to read books written by the great defenders of history. I also read books by Dick Butkus, and Mike Curtis.

He covered a lot of turf in this book, his childhood, his recruitment by the Ohio State Buckeyes (which included a free hooker--whom he did not know was a hooker), his career with the Raiders, and especially the Daryl Stingley incident. Most of the talk today focuses on the Tatum-Stingley incident.

I want to go on the record and say that the first time I saw that hit my first reaction was one of stunned amazement: "That's all...??? That was one of the most unremarkable, non-savage hits Tatum ever dished out." I continue to think the same thing to this day. No number of replays have convinced me of anything else. It was non-remarkable hit. I have seen a hundred hits harder than that in past 2 years.

I want to go on the record and declare that I am a Raider-Hater. Whilst I have a great admiration for Tatum, I hate the Raiders. I have no tribal obligation to make this declaration. I simply believe it is true.

How then did it break Stingley's neck and leave him a quadriplegic? You got me there, buddy. The answer lies in the fluke happen-chance realm of quantum mechanics. God does play dice, contrary to what Einstein said. Tatum just happened to hit Stingley from exactly the right angle, at exactly the right velocity to create the precise impact force necessary to produce the injury.

If you think he calculated that out on a slide-rule and then executed the hit perfectly, you are crazy. I mean certifiably crazy. Tatum swooped in from center field and gave Stingley a light pop to knock him over. By fluke, it was just exactly the precise hit... I don't think for one second that Tatum meant to injury him. He would have hit him drastically harder if he had been up for that mission. Ask Sammy White about that kind of hit. Just watch the footage of Super Bowl XI.

Tatum didn't react much to the Stingley hit because he didn't believe Stingley was injured. Shaken perhaps, injured no. I have to say, without a-posteriori knowledge that Stingley's neck had been broken, I never would have suspected he was injured either. Quite a bit of "They Call me Assassin" deals with Tatum's psychological shock over the fact that this hit produced an injury. Believe me, I understand that. I too, am shocked that that hit produced an injury.

At least one odious blog declares Tatum has finally gone to Hell for that hit. I think that's rubbish. Tatum never intended to harm Stingley with that hit, and I know for a fact that he struggled with the guilt over that hit. A better analysis says something like Tatum killed Stingley and we made him do it. Football is a brutal sport. Just about all ex-players die as a result of it later on. When the alternative is to die because of something else a little later, we accept these consequences, although we frequently have regrets.

Incidentally, everyone has regrets in life. As the great existentialist philosopher Søren Aabye Kierkegaard said: Do this and you will regret it. Don't do this and you will regret it. Do that and you will regret it. Don't do that, and you will regret it.

Flukes happen. This was a fluke. It was a terrible fluke. It was a bad, awful, dreadful fuke, but it was a fluke.

I want to go on the record and declare that Tatum was the absolute hardest hitter in NFL history. Number 2 isn't all that close. No, Ronnie Lott did not hit as hard as Tatum. He was much less savage a hitter. He gave a good pop, but that is all. I would be willing to allow that Lott was a better overall-defender, but he was not a harder hitter.

Only Dick Butkus can rank close to Tatum in terms of hitting ferocity, but because of his slower foot speed, he could not muster the velocity necessary to produce those kinds of violent impacts. Velocity is king. Double the velocity and you quadruple the impact force. I don't doubt that Tatum hit players at twice the speed Butkus did. I don't doubt this produced superior force. Butkus was more massive, and that helps his cause, but the much greater speed of Tatum produced more devastating hits.

Watching a man get hit by Tatum was like watching a human body experience the impact of 1 ounce shotgun slug. The shock went through their bodies, and they dropped dead. Just check out the Earl Campbell hit. That is a legendary moment in NFL history.

Tatum suffered terrible heath problems later in life, which is a study in Football Karma. There are natural cause-and-effect consequences that follow after being the hardest hitter in NFL history. He battled diabetes for years. Portions of both his legs were amputated as a result of circulatory problems stemming from diabetes. I am sure he had plenty of arthritis and orthopedic problems to go with it. Ultimately, a heart attack on Tuesday took his life.

For many of us, death comes as friend. It delivers us from a lot of pain and suffering. It was like this for my grandmother, who died after a painful battle with cancer. I am sure it was like this for Tatum also. I am fairly sure it will be like that for me.

Understand that Jack suffers pain no more. The same is true for Daryl Stingley. I hope the two reconcile somewhere else and at some other time.

What kind of alternative jersey is this?

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/thehuddle/post/2010/03/packers-reveal-new-alternate-jerseys/1?utm_source=bleacherreport.com

There is a strong need for mandatory drug testing in Green Bay... for the executives not the players. I am not talking about the executive committee either. Round up Mark Murphy, Paul Baniel, Betsy Mitchell, Jeff Blumb and Jason Wied. We need to take them down to security. We need to test them for the following agents:

• Mescaline
• LSD
• Ibotenic acid
• Muscimol
• Saliva-A

I also want a full MRI on their brains. We need to check for brain-lesioning, schizophrenic tissue death, Alzheimer's plaque, everything. Something is just ghastly wrong up there in cheeseland. Something has gone bad wrong awful in Green Bay.

I am talking about the new Alternative Uniform that the Packers have approved for 2010. They will be wearing these nasty garments twice in 2010.

This is a disaster. This is just plain damn wrong. What is that? A rugby shirt? That uniform is an abomination in the sight of God, and beyond the pale of an acceptable human moral restraint. This is an offense against the football gods. St. Lombardi, the patron saint of football, would never accept this. When I checked the pol results, some 66% of fans were totally down against these new uniforms. I am surprised it is that low. I expected 95-97% to be violently enraged.

Aren't we supposed to have an NFL committee that prevents this travesties and atrocities from happening? What happened in committee? This is just dreadful!

Green Bay fans, you have to act now to save your team from utter humiliation. Everybody will be laughing like hell at you otherwise.

The AFL on the NFL Network...?

Arena League Football, that is.

I was stunned to see a little blurb on the NFL's official site indicating that the NFL Network is set to begin broadcasting Arena League Football games in April 2010. So much for monopolistic practices.

The great news is that the Arena League is not going out of business. After a hiatus for financial turmoil and recession, the AFL is coming back. However, it does not appear that the L.A. Avengers will be back. They are not listed on roster of teams on the AFL website. Further, the Avengers website indicates they have folded.

Anyway, it will be good to see these guys back in action again. The pinball league was a lot of fun.

More on the NFL Apocalyse

Just when you thought the NFL was the absolute king of the hill...

In a previous article, I discussed just what is at stake in the on-going NFL/NFLPA labor negotiations. I laid down a prophecy that if we have:

1. Baseball style free-agency
2. No franchise tag
3. No transitional tag
4. NBA cash contract style-trading
5. No salary cap
6. No salary floor
7. No revenue sharing or reduced revenue sharing

Then you will see Mayflower trucks loading up in all of the small NFL markets, headed for big markets. Los Angeles will have 2, not 1 franchise playing down in Industry. If San Diego loses the Chargers to Los Angeles, San Diego can replace them in 3-6 weeks with another team. Chicago will get a second team. Houston might get a second team. Las Vegas will get an NFL team. You will see a historical moment of unprecedented and inconceivable team movement.

Well... it turns out that there is more to the story than that. There more reasons why we might see a geographic redistribution of the NFL. In a very well written piece for the National Football Post, a fellow named Robert Boland laid out a few astounding facts that I was dimly aware of, but now keenly interested in.

1. 18 of the Leagues owners are over the age of 65
2. 8 of those owners are over the age of 80
3. Ralph Wilson is 91
4. Georgia's kids were assessed $200 million in inheritance tax on a franchise thought to be worth some $913 million.
5. Very few NFL families have the sort of wealth necessary to shell out a cold $200m to the IRS upon the death of the Patriarch.
6. The Rosenbloom's 60% will fetch a price valuing the team at $750m. This may have a negative impact on the valuation of all NFL teams.
7. Kahn's offer is the best on the table. If his offer is rejected by NFL Finance, the next price is significantly lower.

With 8 owners over the age of 80, we may well see this scenario played out several more times soon. If anyone else besides me watched the documentary series "Full Color Football" on the NFL Network, you must have been impressed by the fact that several of the 1960s founders of the AFL are still around the league today. Al Davis, Ralph Wilson and Bud Adams are just three of them. While Bud is still alive and flipping the bird, both Al and Ralph look to me like they are on their very last legs. To be brutally honest, Al Davis has been on death watch for at least two years now. Raider fans get up in the morning and immediately check the Internet news and see if he is still alive. Al was not present at the NFL Scouting Combine this year.

Let us reason out a scenario together. Suppose that three of our oldest owners were to kick off together in the near the future... say by the end of 2010. They say that they always go in groups of 3. Suppose 3--or even 2--sets of heirs cannot afford to pay the sum of $200-$300m in inheritance taxes. What then?

Several teams will be revalued at the same time, according to real market prices. Put a couple of teams on the auction block in tax distressed conditions, and the Great Recession, and then let's see what happens. The price should go down.

NFL teams are such expensive toys that the collection of prospective buyers is very small each and every time a franchise hits the market. If there are two many franchises on the market at once, what happens to the price? The price will go down again due to the glut of franchises.

What happens if NFL Finance swings open the door to attract more potential buyers due to the glut? You might get a collection of less-well healed owners, who might have trouble carrying a financial bleeder. What happens then? They might look for more lucrative markets in which to vend their product.

The age of present ownership has to be considered be a risk factor when we consider whether an epoch of franchise movement might be on the horizon.

Twin brothers separated at birth: Jim Caviezel and Kurt Warner

For the record, Jim Caviezel and Kurt Warner are twin brothers separated at birth. When the time comes to make the Kurt Warner story movie, Jim is the guy. Here is the physical evidence proving the case. The facts of the case are these:

The NFL's all-undrafted team

So did you see the outstanding piece on FoxSports.com today regarding the NFL's undrafted? They decided to configure an all-star lineup out of nothing but undrafted free agents. I would say that this great list constitutes a minor embarrassment for the talent scouts. Not a major embarrassment, but a minor one.

For the record the names on the list are these:

1 QB Kurt Warner

2 HB Willie Parker

3 HB Ryan Grant

4 FB Leonard Weaver

5 TE Antonio Gates

6 WR Wes Welker

7 WR Lance Moore

8 OT Jason Peters

9 OT Donald Penn

10 G Brian Waters

11 G Stephen Neal

12 C Jeff Saturday

13 DE Adewale Ogunleye

14 DE Shaun Smith

15 DT Pat Williams

16 DT Tommy Kelly

17 LB Bart Scott

18 LB Antonio Pierce

19 LB London Fletcher

20 LB James Harrison

21 CB Jabari Greer

22 CB Leigh Bodden

23 S Ryan Clark

24 S Brain Russell

25 K Adam Vinatieri

26 P Brian Moorman

27 KR Joshua Cribbs

If we played this team on the field, would they win the Super Bowl? It is possible but unlikely. The unit is extremely thick on running backs and linebackers. You could make a formidable West Coast offense and a formidable 3-4 defense with this crew. That is a truly nasty linebacking corps. Probably the ugliest aspect of this team if you are the enemy unit.

However, the offensive line is a bit thin. Jeff Saturday is the one great offensive lineman in this crew. That ain't enough to guard Warner. Of course, if we are running a bunch of shallow crossing routes and quick releases to the running backs, maybe the line will hold. Joe didn't hold the ball long in 1981, and the 49ers didn't give up many sacks.

I am not wild about our receiver corps at all. Warner has had much better targets than this. Antonio Gates is the only great receiver in the corp. I would have to press Joshua Cribbs into service as a reciever. I am sure he would love to catch a few passes from Warner.

I am not in love with the safeties. I think Ryan Clark and Brian Russell can be beaten. I have personally witnessed Warner lighting-up both of those guys. Do your recall how Larry Fitzgerald scored on the long run with 3 minutes to go in the Super Bowl? Yep, I think that was actually Ryan Clark's sector of turf he ran through.

So what is the moral of the story? Don't draft Linebackers and Running Backs. There are damn good ones availible on Monday after the draft. Don't draft a kicker either. You can get a hall of fame kicker for free.

Quick Blog about the NFL's Top 10 Innovations

So the NFL Network unveiled another masterpiece just last night: The NFL's top 10 innovations. For the record, those elements of the game listed as innovations are as follows:

1. The Zone Blitz
2. The West Coast Offense
3. The 4-3 defense
4. The Shotgun
5. The 46 Defense
6. The No Huddle Offense
7. The 3-4 Defense
8. The Run 'N Shoot Offense
9. The Tampa 2
10. The Wildcat Offense

So, here we have a laundry list of all the things we see on any given Sunday these days. As always I have a couple little quibbles with this ranking:

1. The 4-3 and the Tamp 2 are almost the same thing. The only minor adjustment is that you drop two DBs deep to ensure nobody gets behind you, and the MLB drops back and guards the middle zone of the field.
2. The Tamp 2 should be called the Steel Curtain defense. It was invented by Chuck Knoll. Tony Dungy learned it when he joined the Steelers in 1978. Dungy himself has always credited the Steelers & Knoll with inventing the scheme.
3. The 46 Defense is almost the same thing as the 4-3 defense. You merely adjust the lineup of the defensive linemen, and shift the Will and Sam linebackers over to one side.
4. The 46 Defense can't really be considered an innovation because it was more a crew of men in Chicago than a working scheme. It is said that Buddy Ryan was able to implement this scheme in Philly and Arizona. I deny that. The Philly defense was different in every respect. It was a 3-4 defense. The Arizona Cardinals never got that defense right at all. Ergo, you do not have an organized system of defense that is repeatable.
5. The 46 has not stood the test of time at all. Nobody plays this scheme anymore. As the documentary said, a certain dude named Joe Gibbs figured out how to block the thing. Also it did match well against the Run 'N Shoot at all. For those foolish enough to play 4 wide against the 46, touchdowns flowed quick and easy. You just needed a rugged QB who could take a hit.

Finally, I have to take serious issue with making the Zone Blitz the #1 innovation of all time. That's just one of those bizzaro things that make you ask "What the hell were they thinking?" Yes, it is a nice piece of trickeration. Yes, it is a recent innovation. Yes, it does mess with QBs big time.

No, the big Harrison play in the Super Bowl was not a Zone Blitz. James Harrison is an outside linebacker. It is not unusual for one of these guys to fake the blitz and drop back into coverage. I have seen this every year since 1979. If Harrison were a nose tackle pulling off the center of the line, and then made the big interception, that would have been the Zone Blitz. This is not what happened.

I am absolutely fucking amazed that the guys at NFL Films and the NFL Network promoted this play as the ultimate example of the Zone Blitz? What the fuck? Didn't you guys realize that this was a mistake?

Please, please, please don't try to tell me that this is the #1 innovation of all time because it won SB XLIII. You know that just isn't true. If the real motive is to get Dick LeBeau into the Hall of Fame, I am all in favor of it. Still, let's not make factually false statements to get him there.

One other comment: I really enjoyed the diagrams and the explanations. More please. More detail please. Diagram the plays for these schemes. Show us the common plays. You should have shown the people how the 49er triangle pattern works.

A short blog about whether the Rams might move back to Los Angeles

There are is still considerable doubt about whether the next owners of the Rams might be interested in moving back to Los Angeles or not. I grant you that nothing is certain. It's never over until its over. It ain't over till the fat lady sings.

With this said, let's play the micro economic business management game. You are the new owner of the Rams. You just laid down $500 million of your personal wealth to purchase an NFL franchise in St. Louis. You acquired $429m additional in collateralized debt. You have acquired 100% of the stock from Dale, Lucia, and Stan. You are now the boss.

You are now mortgaged up to your eye-balls for $429 million, and you just blew all your dry investment powder. If you default, the Bank gets the team. You loose your $500 million down. Now what are you going to do?

Option 1: Keep the team in St. Louis and pay down the debt of $429 million as quickly as possible from team revenues. This means slowly. Try to get the city of St. Louis to make serious improvements in the Edward Jones Dome so that greater revenues might flow. Bleed your other business ventures for capital such that the debt can be repaid quickly.

Option 2: You see that you have the open option to move the team back to the 2nd largest market in North America, where they have a history. There you will have a new state-of-the-art convertible domed stadium in Industry California. This can all happen in 2014.

Now what are you going to do, my business manager? You make the call, knowing for certain that it's your financial ass on the line. How are you going to reduce debt, reduce risk, and optimize returns?

You know what you do? You do point #1 in the short run, and you execute point #2 in the middle of the night Jan 1, 2014. That's how you pay off the team and make it your solid asset.

You see, this is a pretty devastating question when it is phrased this simply. You know these are very rich men we are dealing with here. Most of them got that way for a reason. They are very shrewd money men. They think as serious managers would. This is the biggest single reason to fear, if you are the city of St. Louis.

There is one other factor to consider. Just about every billionaire in the billionaire's club took a haymaker to the chin in September of 2008. Just about all these guys sunk a lot of money in CDOs and MBS paper. They also held considerable stock in financials. All of these investments have gone to shit in the past 9 months. You should read the Forbes report on billionaires. Believe it or not, they are in a lot of trouble right now.

What does this mean to the Rams? It means the next guy to own the Rams is very likely to a fellow whose personal assets are hurting right now. Said billionaire has such a deep love for the sport that he just cannot resist the irrational temptation to buy this team, even despite the fact that he can ill-afford to do so right now.

Consider this my friends and fellow Ram fans.

Steve Sabol of NFL films had a conversion experiance about three years ago

I am a huge fan of NFL Films.  I grew up on them.  They taught me the structure and strategy of the game.  I owe a debt of gratitude to Steve Sabol for this.  However, Mr. Sabol has pissed me off many times.  It is kind of a love-hate thing.

Why?

The early portion of the man's career (late 1970s to the late 1990s) basically focused on mythologizing NFL history (both players and teams).  His myths are full of men of destiny who rarely or never failed.  Invincible juggernauts who could not be defeated.  Men who could snatch victory from the jaws of defeat despite major orthopedic injury, etc.  These are all miracle stories of a sort.  They are close cousins to tales of feeding thousands with 7 loaves and 5 fishes, or walking on water.  We love a good Paul Bunyon, Perseus, Samson, Hercules, Beowulf story, and so we sit transfixed and listen.

The interesting thing is Steve has been experiencing a change of religion in the past 3 to 5 years.  It would be hard for me to put my finger on the exact moment when his conversion happened.  Two different series of programs have manifested a fundamental shift in his goals and purposes.  The first is the "America's Game" documentary series.  The second is "The NFL's Top 10" series.

Both of these are hard documentary series.  Both of these try to do the most objective job possible of ranking important events and teams and players and facts about NFL history.  The focus is about who, what, where, when, why and how.  Myth makers are sitting on the bench.  Smart players who lived through it all are asked to be brutally honest about tough subjects.  Ugly flies in the mythological ointment are exposed.  Controversial subjects are argued well by many sides.  Some youngsters are shocked by what they see.  

This is especially true with the "America's Game" documentary series.  There are many youngsters who cannot remember the Steelers or the 49ers first hand.  They never saw them play during their classic eras.  I remember it first hand.  What these youngsters see of the Steelers and 49ers often shocks their minds.  They can't believe the real Terry Bradshaw was on the bubble for several years.  They can't believe the 49ers wanted to replace Joe Montana in 1988.  Their eyes bug out of the skulls when they see this.  I know.  I have dis-infected several true believers by showing them these documentaries on DVR.  Their reactions have been funny to watch.

This series plays like a Mea Culpa from Steve Sabol.  It is as if he feels he must correct the distortions of NFL history he created in his earlier life.

I love both of these new series.  The older I get, the more NFL history I know.  It is hard for me to believe that I have seen and understood every Super Bowl since XIV.  I saw a portion of XIII, but I didn't really understand what I was looking at.  I was just 12 years old.  I have watched (closely) every season since 1980.  I know this history first hand.  I lived through much of it.  I remember it well.  For this reason, the myth making thing has become very tired and very transparently false in many cases.  Lately, many myths, particularly those surrounding the Raiders and 49ers, have irked me a great deal.  For those who do not know, I grew up in Fresno California during the 1980s.  Believe me, I saw the Raiders and 49ers every week.  There was no NFL Prime Ticket or Super Fan in those days.  You watched what NBC and CBS showed you.  NBC showed the Raiders.  CBS showed the 49ers.  I know them well.  You can fool some of the people most of the time, but you can't fool me.

Three reasons why my Rams suck

It may suprise some people to know this, but I am old enough to remember when the Rams played in the Los Angeles Colesium.  I've been a Ram fan for just about 30 years now, since 1979.  The 2009 seasons has not yet begun, so it is difficult to say 30 just yet.  Many people are shocked when I tell them that I am a Ram fan.  None of them doubt it is true.  Who would claim to be that, if you aren't?  I would qualify that by saying "these days".

As you know, my team has officially been the 2nd worst team in professional footbal the last two years running.  We have been #31 out of 32 teams. We are about to draft #2 overall for the second straight year.  With just 5 days left to go before the NFL Draft, I think it is a good time to run down the short list of reasons why my team sucks.  We need to bear this in mind during our draft.  Accuracy of perspective is terribly important as we invest these megar draft picks next Saturday & Sunday in New York.

#1 Reason:  Scott Linehan.

Folks, lets be perfectly honest:  Scott Linehan was an abject failure as a head coach.  He took over a team that was pretty well loaded and had recently had good quality years.  It took him just 1 years to run us into the ground completely.  I bear the man no personal malice, but then again I didn't know him.  Many of the players despised him fearcely.  Torry Holt, generally considered a good citizen and a non-diva, utterly detested the man.  There were serious confligrations with Steven Jackson and Marc Bulger.  Many thought he was a back-biting worm.  He wasn't 2 faced, he was 5 faced... or so they said of him.  Linehan never motivated anybody.  Linehan, never got the men to buy into his system.  Speaking of system, Linehan never implemented his system.  When Linehan came in, he promised to implement a 49er style, Bill Walsh style West Coast Offense.  I can only remember 1 game during his tenure when we manifested that style of offense.  Ironically, it was against the 49ers in 2006.  The game was in St. Louis.  In the final 2 minutes of the game, we were trailing by a point or two.  On 5 consecutive pass plays, we ran go routes.  Issac Bruce and Torry Holt sprinted for the end zone.  On 5 consecutive plays, Bulger checked down to Steven Jackson.  These passes hardly covered 8 yards of distance from Buldger's throwing arm to Jackson's hands.  Jackson ran for 10 or 15 yards each time.  We kicked a field goal and won the game.  I have bitter memories of Joe Montana and Roger Craig doing this to my Rams many times during the 1980s.  It was bitter revenge.  I never saw this happen again during Linehan's tenure.  This was the first and the last we saw of the West Coast offense in Ram country.

As we draft on Saturday and Sunday, we need to be mindful of the fact that the players quit on Linehan because he was regarded as incompetent and two-faced.  This means we had a bad coach, and it means we have quitters on the team.  Be mindful of this, and think about how best to repair it.  Character is a huge issue.  Spagnolo knows this, and he said it is going to be priority #1 in his tenure as coach.

#2 Reason:  Jim Hasslet

Speaking of Linehan never implementing his system, how about this?  When Linehan first came to Rams, he said we were going to run a minimum-risk, conservative, flexible, multiple-front defense.  That never happen.  We hired Jim Hasslet.  This is going to be difficult to write, because I liked Jim Haslet a lot.  I like his gambler style.  I liked his high risk defense.  I now realize that this is a form of gambling addiction, and I need a 12 step program.  The first step on the road to life recovery is to recognize that I have a problem with defensive gambling.  In retrospect, Jim Hasslet's defense was a catastrophy in St. Louis.  As Boomer Eisaison said several times last season, speaking of my Ram's getting wasted 42-0 in the first half, "DISASTER! IT'S A DISASTER!"  The Eagles, the Giants, and several others read Jim Hasslet like a book, and burned us like a holocost special.

As we draft on Saturday and Sunday, we need to be mindful of the fact that Steve Spagnolo is now our head coach.  He is not Jim Hasslet.  His defensive mindset is nothing like Jim Hasslet's mindset.  Philosophically, these are two radically different coaches.  Spagnolo is a very careful and thoughtful Chess player.  He likes to blitz, but he almost never gambles.  We can expect the defense to get a lot better without major additions or subtractions.  A simple change in philosophy will be enough to make a big difference in St. Louis.  Defense should not be a priority in this year's draft.

#3 Reason:  We have the worst offensive line in the NFL

There are many sayings about football.  It is a game of inches.  It is a game of bounces.  It's all boils down to blocking & tackling.  Nothing is more important that this saying:  The game is won and lost in the trenches.  You must control the line of scrimage.  If you win the battle at the line of scrimage, you win the game.  For two straight years now, our offensive line has utterly lost the battle at the line of scrimage.  For two straight years we have been 2-14.  Without Pace in 2007, we had the worst line in football.  With Pace in 2008, we had the worst line in football.  With him or without him, the results were similar.  This is why he got the pink slip from HQ.  

We have only two starters as I write this blog entry:  Jason Brown who will snap center, and Alex Barron who is our right tackle.  Alex Barron was declared a disapointment by the NFL Network in a recent Draft show.  Let's qualify that.  Alex Barron has not become a dominant all-pro, and a fixture at the right tackle in the NFC's Pro-Bowl roster.  For this reason, he has not become the successor to Jackie Slater we had hoped he would be.  On the other hand, he is the only man to start and play 32 out 32 games during the past 2 seasons.  There have been pretty stupid penalties all the way along the line, but he has blocked pretty well.  I would have cut Richie Icognito after the Washington game.  He would have cleaned out his locker if I had been GM.  Go back and watch the final two minutes of the game and see what I mean.  The other bumbs are rotating and failing at various positions.  Cut 'em all.

As we draft on Saturday and Sunday, we need to be mindful of the fact that our offensive line is our first, second and third priority in the 2009 draft.  We have only two solid starters now.  We have three holes.  You might argue we are in a worse state now than ever before.  If we don't get a lot better on draft day, we are in for one hell of a bad 2009 season.  You might say we have lost the battle at the line of scrimage on defense.  Let's leave that aside for the moment.  It is not as bad as some say on defense.  We must obtain two starting linemen on draft weekend.  You can do it in the draft.  You can do it by trade, but you have to do it.  I suppose Icognito is going to stay at right guard.  The team seems to like him for some reason I cannot understand.

#4 Reason:  The legacy of Georgia

I recently caught the Raider's 1980 championship film on the NFL network.  About 20 minutes into the show, I saw something that brought bitter tears to my eyes.  I wept over the ruins of Jerusalem.  The Raiders were boasting of how they were the winningest team in NFL history.  They showed a chart which indicated that there winning percentage was better than both the Cowboys and Rams, who were the two closest teams to the Raiders in winning percentage in the year 1980.  Yep, that's right, the Rams were #3 winningest team in NFL history as of the year 1980.  Don't take my word for it.  Take the Raider's word for it.  They have no love for us, and no vested interest in our team.  The Rams are also a much older football team than the Raiders and Cowboys.  We were founded in 1937.  The Raiders and Cowboys started life in the 1960s. We had been excelent over a much longer period of time than they.

The same cannot be said today.  29 years later, our winning percentage is nothing like what it was in 1980.

What happened?  It should be noted that 1980 was the first full year of the Georgia administration.  We went 11-5.  It was good.  It got real bad real soon.  There were brief moments of excellence.  We even won a Super Bowl.  Nevertheless, the legacy of Georgia is terrible, and cannot be over-stated.  She turned us into a Beer-league organization.  We had several loosing season in the 1980s.   We couldn't keep our team together in an era when most people did.  We had 9 years of horror between 1990 and 1999.  We had a brief moment in the sun, then it all fell appart.  Now we have had 5 more years of horror.  

In 28 years as owner of the Rams,  Georgia had many more loosing seasons than winning seasons.  Let's be frank and lets not mince words:  She was the joke owner of the league. Much more so then Bill Bidwell or Al Davis.  This wasn't entirely, or even primarily, because she was a woman.  It was because she was one of the bad owners.  There are tales of Georgia casting astrology charts on potential draft picks to determine who would be emotionally compadible with her, and ergo, a good player for the team.  I apologize to Skip for talking about his mother this way, but I think Skip knows his mother should not have been running an NFL franchise.

As we draft on Saturday and Sunday, we need to be mindful of the fact that astrology charts have no bearing on football merits and demerits.  We need great college football players.  We need men with a proven track record of success in college.  We don't need developmental projects.  We don't need home-town heroes to fill the stands.  Skip needs to be an owner like his Dad, not like his mom.

Draft well.  Fill holes.  Get better.  Win.  Live proud.  Restore the traditions of old.

So the NFL is thinking about playing 18 games per season?

The 2009 NFL Meetings just concluded in Dana Point California this week.  A lot of things happened, but nothing more significant than the proposal of an 18 game season.  The consensus says that this is going to happen, but not until 2011.  A collective barganing agreement with the Players Association will have to be hashed out first.

There are many coaches and players objecting to this proposal, so why is it so certain to go through?  There are several reasons, but the solid gold biggie is this:  The Networks are begging for it.  Why?

You have to understand the proposal.  Under the new plan, the NFC & AFC championships will be pushed all the way forward into February.  The Super Bowl will happen toward the end of February.  Feb happens to be sweeps month.  Sweeps determined network ratings for the year.  Network ratings in Feb determine what networks will earn all year long in terms of advertiser money.  Feb is a dead month in terms of sports.  March Madness is a month away.  The NBA is a long way from finished.  There is no Baseball.  Football has packed it in for another year.  This is why Sports Illustrated puts out a Swimsuit issue in Feb.  Sports radio hosts look for any scandal they can find, because there is little or nothing to report.  We hear a lot about verbal gaffs and steroids in Feb.

The Networks want to put the NFC & AFC championships as well as the Super Bowl in sweeps months, knowing full well the power of attraction these events hold.  It could boost network revenues considerably in a time when network ratings are circling the drain.  The Networks will break their megar bread with the NFL, if only the NFL will do them this favor.  Oh, yeah... More games will help the situation also.

I would be remiss if I didn't mention that Roger Godell's pet project is 1 international game per team per year.  Roger wants to see American Style Football become an international powerhouse.  Roger knows that the NFL must be the leader in this push.  The NCAA will never undertake this project by themselves.

Certain owners, such as Jerry Jones of the Cowboys, objected strongly to this project... at least in the framework of a 16 game season.  Jones sited the fact that he just invested in the Tajmahal of football, and can ill afford to loose 1 home game per year.  It would mess up his entire financial game plan.  On the other hand, Jones won't object to getting an extra home game... every other year.

The 18 game season seems like a deal in the works.  The Networks are begging for it.  It gives Godell the space he needs to undertake his international intiative.  Guys like Jerry Jones won't object to more games and more revenues.

I think this is going to happen.

So if I was Responsible for Rebuilding the Detroit Lions, What Would I do?

This morning, the NFL network was replaying portions of the NFL combine, which is now history. A very interesting question got raised during the segment I watched: If you were the GM responsible for rebuilding the Detroit Lions, what would you do? Do you take Matthew Stafford, as they are expected to do? Do you go in a different direction?

First, let's admit one thing: The roster is currently a disaster. They have exactly one piece of championship material on the roster. That is Charles Johnson. Everybody else is meat for the grinder. As the panel of experts observed, the team can draft at any and all positions and make improvements. I concur, but I wouldn't do another wide receiver right now.

Mike Mayock is probably correct when he says that Detroit will follow the Atlanta model for rebuilding. This means drafting a QB high and an offensive lineman lower. This is one of the key reasons Atlanta turned it around last year. Michael Turner also had a lot to do with it. I believe Mayock called it right. Detroit will follow this model. Whether it is right or wrong for Detroit's situation is immaterial. It is a copycat league. People emulate success and anti-emulate failure. Atlanta and Miami showed us how to get out of a jam quickly last year. Most people believe Miami got lucky scoring Chad Pennington at the last second... and let's not mention Tom Brady's knee injury. For this reason Atlanta is viewed as the better model.

What would I do? I wouldn't draft a quarterback this year. Detroit is not Atlanta. They have not been to the playoffs in a decade. Atlanta had been to playoffs several times this decade. Detroit in 2009 is far more poor in terms of roster talent than Atlanta in 2008. We are looking at 3 hard years of austerity and loss before things turn around. With that in mind, I am going to avoid the thin crop of quarterbacks in 2009 and wait for the bumper crop in 2010. I going to exploit the rich crop of offensive linemen in 2009, taking three or four of them. I am going to have a talent rich sophomore offensive line {and Charles Johnson} ready in 2010 when I draft a QB from the bumper crop. The table will be set. Tim Tebow will be comfortable when we take him.

Remember, the Lions are very likely to have a poor loosing record in 2009. We're talking about 3 to 6 wins, depending upon the breaks. Tim Tebow is probably not going to be the #1 ranked QB in 2010. Some foolish idiots question whether he will make it as QB in the NFL. They questioned Dan Marino also. Tebow will be around when the Lions draft. He is obtainable. He has the talent and the mentality that the Lions require to turn the ship around. He will be the next Bobby Layne in Detroit, if the organization is smart enough to select him.

So who should the Lion's select?
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1. #1 overall Jason Smith LOT Baylor
1. #20 overall Andre Smith LOT Alabama
2. #33 overall Eric Wood C Louisville

After this, they can do as they please. Basically, with two guys named Smith and one guy named Wood, they would lay in the foundation of an all-pro offensive line.

Do you really think they can get Jason Smith and Andre Smith in the same draft? Yep, I do. The market for Andre has gone cold in the aftermath of his no show. He has many problems. A lot of offensive linemen impressed the scouts this year. It is a bumper crop. Left tack is a thick position this year. They aren't scarce this time. The no-show at the combine is going to hurt him, especially when Jason Smith and Eugene Monroe lit it up. Andre Smith may very well be hanging around at #20 when the Lions select again.

I like the notion of lining all three of them up on the same side. Slot Jason at the LOT. Slot Andre at the LOG. Slot Eric Wood at the Center. That could be the best young left side since the Raiders had Shell, Upshaw and Dalby together in the Early 1970s. That offensive line won some Super Bowls for the Raiders. Jim Plunket really apreciated having those guys around.

So there are more rumors about the Rams #2 pick

So fresh rummors have surfaced about the Rams' #2 pick overall in the upcoming 2009 draft. What are these rummors?

1. The New York Giants are said to be interested in the #2 pick. Why? The Giants have an excellent roster. They were the finest team in the league during the regular season. Eli Manning is arguably more talented than his elder brother, but his brother has plenty of things Eli doesn't have: 3 game breaking receivers and the most effective tight end in the league. Worse Plaxico Burris is probably going to do 3 years in prison, and this will effectively terminate his career. This legal case will also remove the 1 game breaking receiver Eli has. For these reasons, the Giants are said to be very interested in Michael Crabtree of Texas Tech. He is a legit game changing receiver. Unfortunately, he is also a top 5 pick. The Giants need a very high pick to secure this receiver for Eli. God knows they have the talent. They can afford to sacrifice this year's entire draft in the name of acquiring a great receiver.
2. The Vikings are without a quarterback , and it is rumored that they have three options in mind (A) Sign Kurt Warner, who is a free agent, but this is considered unlikely, (2) Make a deal for Mark Bulger--which is highly questionable as an option, (3) Trade horses to get a high pick and draft a QB. The third option is considered the most realistic option.

So what do I think? Deal the pick to the Giants if they want it. Deal Bulger to the Vikings if they want him. With the rebuilding program we must undergo over the next 2-3 years, we should consider acquiring a fellow like David Carr and/or Chris Simms. I would acquire them both. Both would be effective stop-gaps as we build.