Archive for April, 2006
As long as the Falcons don’t draft me, Josh and Doug on day two, this will go down in the books as the best off-season for Atlanta ever and possibiy one of the best of any team ever.
If you had told me Tim Jennings would be not only the first Dawg DB drafted, but also the first Dawg drafted period, I would have said something to the effect of how yo’ ass is crazy or how you is trippin’. I love Tim Jennings, he’s a great athlete, but still he must’ve done something really impressive in front of indy personnel to go as high as he did. GATA, 23.
Indy’s three day-one selections average out to 5′10″, 209 pounds, none of which were receivers.
Day One Winners:
Arizona - Got Leinart at 10, then got their ticket to the playoffs 62 picks later. Arizona will be a top-3 offensive team for several years starting in ‘07, when Leinart takes over the QB duties.
Pope: Has chunks of guys like Klopfenstein and Fasano in his stool
Atlanta - hit paydirt with the last two Hokies so figured “why not” with Jimmy Williams. Buh bye, Jason Webster. The guy who single-handedly led Mississippi State to its upset over Florida in 2004, Jerious Norwood, should be a good addition as well.
Houston - I still think they should have traded down for d’Brickashaw and an additional pick or two, but they did address their most pressing needs on day one - defensive help and offensive line help.
New England - Got a great, great RB in Laurence Maroney in the first round that fits the Pats offensive scheme well, then were able to grab future ROY Chad Jackson from Florida in the second.
New York Jets - Got the best OT (d’Brick), the best center (Mangold), and the most underrated QB (kellen clemens) with their first three picks, then shored up some defensive needs with the next two. A great selection day, provided the Jets’ staff and fans are patient with this group - they’ll need a season to adjust.
Day One Losers:
Buffalo - Overreached BIG TIME with their first two picks (Donte Whittner and John McCargo), then took the most overrated CB in the draft (Ashton Youboty).
Dallas - Took a LB that wasn’t even the best LB on his team (Bobby Carpenter) in the first, then passed on Leonard Pope to take Anthony Fasano, a slower, smaller version of current Cowboy Jason Witten, himself a POS overrated Volunqueer. But I’m not bitter about that.
New York Giants - Mathias “d’Brick’s bitch” Kiawanuka and a Georgia Tech player. Even drafting Sinorice Moss can’t offset the future damage.
Tampa Bay - Passed over the best guard in the draft, Max Jean-Gilles, and took another guard, Davin Joseph, with the 23rd overall selection (?!). Coach Gruden: don’t even try to spin this like a couple other teams were waiting for Joseph to fall to them in the first round and you just had to snatch him up. Please.
Day One’s Boom-Or-Bust Uncertainty Award, presented by Tums, goes to:
Tennessee, which selected Vince Young and LenDale White on day one. Are they gonna take Ruben Houston and Marcus Vick on day two?
1. With the first pick in this year’s draft, the Houston Texans select “Friday Night” by G. Love And Special Sauce.
Mel Kiper, Jr.: A shock-bomb is dropped right off the bat as Houston takes the Philly trio. This is nonetheless a solid selection as G. and Co. have several solid albums under their belt. But will the Texans regret selecting…
2. With the second pick in this year’s draft, the New Orleans Saints select “Mr. Television Man (Live)” by the Josh Joplin Band.
Mel Kiper, Jr.: Surprising that this pick fell into the Saints’ lap. Not only is the Josh Joplin Band one of the most energetic, exciting bands to come out of the Atlanta area in some time, but this track actually has Dave Akins clearly going “Yeaaaaaaahhhhhhhh” in the background. Josh plus Dave equals upsideability. Huuuge upsideability.
3. With the third pick in this year’s draft, the Tennessee Titans select “Wrapped Around Your Finger” by The Police.
Mel Kiper, Jr.: The Titans got exactly what they wanted here - a Hall-Of-Fame trio with a penchant for repeating the same thing over and over and over. Aditionally, Sting can apparently fuck for like, hours, so you really can’t go wrong here.
4. With the fourth pick in this year’s draft, the New York Jets select “Coney Island Baby” by Tom Waits.
Mel Kiper, Jr.: Maybe a little early for Waits, but still a decent pick. The Jets could’ve probably traded down a few spots and still gotten this mournful, drunken lullaby by the master of mournful, drunken lullabyes. Being a home-town guy helps though. Springsteen would’ve also been a good selection here.
5. With the fifth pick in this year’s draft, the Green Bay Packers select “Talk Show Host” by Radiohead.
Mel Kiper, Jr.: Coup of coups at pick five. Thom Yorke alone has enough angst to carry this team back to the playoffs. Big question mark here is, Can cohesion exist between depression-riddled leftist Yorke and good-ole-Southern boy Brett Favre?
6. With the sixth pick in this year’s draft, the San Francisco 49′ers select “I Asked For Water (He Gave Me Gasoline)” by Lucinda Williams.
Mel Kiper, Jr.: If you’re going to take a woman this early, Lucinda’s a great pick; great attitude, can hang with the guys, drink like a fish, and isn’t afraid to drop an f-bomb every now and then.
7. With the seventh pick in this year’s draft, the Oakland Raiders select “WDAV Radio - Joey Fights” by Dave Akins (age 12) and Ben Crosby (age 11).
Mel Kiper, Jr.: Once again, the Raiders have proven their ineptitude on Draft Day. A bad bad pick. Todd Marinovich bad.
8. With the eigth pick in this year’s draft, the Buffalo Bills select “The Promise” by Tracy Chapman.
Mel Kiper, Jr.: The Bills really needed a big presence on the defensive line. Instead they take a balladeer nearly ten years gone from falling off the map. Buffalo will regret this pick. Just not as much as the Raiders will regret theirs.
9, With the ninth pick in this year’s draft, the Detroit Lions select “King Of Comedy” by R.E.M..
Mel Kiper, Jr.: Looking back at the last few first round selections by Detroit, it’s good to see the Lions not go with an offensive pick. Like “Pop That Pussy”.
10. With the tenth pick in this year’s draft, the Arizona Cardinals select “Proceed” by The Roots.
Mel Kiper, Jr.: Great selection here. ?uestlove’s excellent percussion work will blend perfectly with Fitzgerald, Boldin, James and company.
* Note: This post was written by a guy who predicted Ryan Leaf would have a better pro career than Peyton Manning, so here… here’s one salt, grain of. Take it.
Yesterday afternoon ESPN broadcast their Metaphorical Fellating of Reggie Bush NFL Draft Special, Part God-Knows-What. With the draft only a few days away, I’d figure I’d try to drop a little knowledge ’round here on what I think. Like that matters. Just a few observations from your football fan everyman…
1. OK ESPN. We get it. Reggie Bush is good. We know. But y’know what? I’m not sold on the USC phenom as an NFL player. I’ve heard very little from anyone in the way of Reggie’s weaknesses. He’s being coddled by the media as if he’s not only going to win Rookie of the Year honors and singlehandedly win the Texans the Super Bowl, but also build a 250,000 seat stadium to house his fans with his bare hands, play three positions at the same time and, for good measure, rid the world of Parkinson’s disease or something. Sorry, Houston, but we have a problem: he’s not going to do those things (only Leonard Pope can manage such tasks).
Bush’s greatest assets, his speed and cutting ability, won’t be as much of an asset at the pro level. His height works against him, too. While on film his physical stature reminds many of Gale Sayers, keep in mind Gale Sayers played back in the day when DE’s and LB’s didn’t have the combination of quickness and lateral movement they do today. Nowadays, if you want a quick back you need someone with a low center of gravity. He’s just not built to be a 15-20 carry guy. He can pose problems for defenses by shifting from the backfield to wideout on plays, but we’ll see how that works out after he gets popped across the middle a couple of times.
If Bush is going to be a star in this league, I think it’s going to be as a return guy; but what do I know.
2. So who’s this year’s Brady/Farve? You know, the mid-round QB that ends up being a star? A few guys that may just fit the bill:
- Kellen Clemens, Oregon1: He’s the QB sleeper of this draft. Clemens was having an outstanding year before an injury cut his season short, but he still managed to put up over 2400 yards passing at a 64% completion clip with 19 TD’s and 4 INT’s. God only knows what kind of season he would have had had he not been injured and if he had a complement of players around him like Leinart had at USC.
- Darrell Hackney, UAB: I always root for the physical-oddity guys. Jared Lorenzen was the best thing that ever happened to Kentucky football - I watched that guy every chance I got. Hackney’s a roly-poly 240 pounds but just a close haircut away from being under 6 feet. Despite this, he’s a dad-gum good quarterback. He won’t be thrown into starting for at least a couple of years, so he’ll have time to develop further.
- Charlie Whitehurst, Clemson: At some point this guy has to make a legitimate, sustained impact, right? Right?? Chuk’s the type of player whose entire career path may be determined by the staff around him; if he’s picked by a team with a good, patient QB coach, he could blossom. Or not.
3. Overrateds/Underrateds:
- QB: Overrated: Vince Young. Underrated: Clemens.
- DB: Overrated: Ashton Youboty, tOSU. Underrated: DeMario Minter, UGA
- RB: Overrated: LenDale White, USC. Underrated: Joseph Addai, LSU
- LB: Overrated: Ernie Sims, FSU2. Underrated: Demeco Ryans, Alabama
4. Rookie of the Year candidates:
- Mario Williams, NC State
- Chad Jackson, Florida
- Jimmy Williams, VA Tech
- Hedging my bet, I’ll put Reggie Bush in here as well.
ROY: Jackson.
That’s it for now…
UPDATE: Josh (Martians Attacking Indianapolis) has his first-round analysis up here.
1 Clemens will likely be the fourth or fifth QB taken, so admittedly he’s not a likely “mid-rounder” per se. Maybe “Under-The-Radar Guy” is a more apropos label.
2 This is what you get for choosing Free Shoes U over Georgia.
7 out of 25 and now back-to-back ain’t bad.
Photo D. Cebula, Athens Banner-Herald
Congrats, ladies.
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Back when I was at UGA, I remember one day where Chip and I were walking through the East-side Kroger when we happened upon the meat section. There, amongst the beef n’ chicken, were bags of the soulfullest of all soul foods: chitlins. And right next to ‘em was a stack of these:
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Early morning, April 15.
Somewhere out there in outer space, high above the earth, the Voyager space probe carries with it a “golden record”; a collection of songs for another civilization to one day, hopefully, experience. Among these songs is an instrumental piece by bluesman Blind Willie Johnson, played on guitar with slide, entitled “Dark Was The Night”. Few if any instrumental pieces have such a beautiful, painful, emotionally evocative tone than this one. It’s apropos, then, on this Good Friday. The Johnson song is derived from an old hymn:
Dark was the night, and cold the ground
On which the Lord was laid;
His sweat like drops of blood ran down;
In agony he prayed.
“Father, remove this bitter cup,
If such Thy sacred will;
If not, content to drink it up
Thy pleasure I fulfill.”
Go to the garden, sinner, see
Those precious drops that flow;
The heavy load He bore for thee;
For thee he lies so low.
Then learn of Him the cross to bear;
Thy Father’s will obey;
And when temptations press thee near,
Awake to watch and pray.
Ry Cooder, himself not a bad slide player (check out his work on the soundtrack to Paris, Texas) said of Blind Willie: “Beyond being a great guitar player, I think this guy is one of those interplanetary world musicians-and there are only a few. Blind Willie Johnson is in the ether somewhere. He’s up there in the zone.”
Coincidentally, or perhaps not, “Dark Was The Night” was also used in the Italian film, The Gospel According to St. Matthew - regarded as one of the best depictions of Christ’s passion.
A Quicktime version of Johnson’s achingly beautiful masterpiece can be heard here.
Happy Easter.
This post was inspired by a Metafilter entry, submitted in September of last year.
RBI Baseball was a groundbreaking baseball video game for it’s time. The first game to be fully licensed by MLB and the Players Association, RBI was the scene of many epic battles between my friends and I. Just the other day the Croz and I were talking about how dominant the Red Sox were in the game: Clemens was always the top choice for starter, and it seemed like every guy in the lineup was a 8-bit superstar (Rice, Boggs, Baylor, Evans as starters, with Henderson and Burks off the bench).
Anyway, what this guy has done is amazing: he’s accurately (as accurately as possible with a ~20-year-old video game) reproduced the 10th inning of Game 6 of the 1986 World Series (the Buckner game) using RBI baseball video and Vin Scully’s original call. Sweet stuff.
I just can’t imagine 1) how long this took and 2) how he didn’t go insane from the music.
It’s easy1 - just add an egg.
1. Easy unless you’re Japanese. In which case you’ll go out of your way to make it as complicated (and yes, entertaining as possible).
