NFL Matters

NFL Christmas came and some major gifts have been opened and exchanged. The NFL is like an Ant Farm: No matter how many established inroads are dug by teams, the entire league can be shaken a few times and the whole thing starts over again fresh.

While the Bears didn't get Mario Williams, they still made a very impressive move by trading two third round draft picks for the incredibly talented and psychologically disturbed Brandon Marshall. With this trade, the Bears finally gave their franchise QB Jay Cutler the elite receiver the Bears haven't had since Johnny Morris. I also believe the Bears were NOT aware of Marshall's Lady-Punching incident in New York before making the trade, but it doesn't matter. The Bears needed to make this move strictly because they got a better receiver than Vincent Jackson for a much better price. I also believe Marshall won't be suspended for the alleged incident either.

The Bears also made sure that a Caleb Hanie situation never happens again, by signing Jason Campbell to be the backup QB, and they also added some linebacker depth by bringing in Blake Costanzo while retaining some of their own in Israel Idonije, Kellen Davis, Tim Jennings, Craig Steltz, and Josh McCown.

All these moves the Bears made are fine additions, but they are not the reason Phil Emery was brought in as General Manager. Emery will ultimately prove his worth in the draft. Still, helluva start Phil.

Today also became a significant day in NFL History as for the first time ever, both an NFL GM and a Head Coach were suspended. Sean Payton and Mickey Loomis felt the wrath of Roger Goodell, as the commissioner suspended Loomis for 8 games, and Payton for the entire season as punishment for "Bounty-Gate".

I had predicted Goodell would suspend Gregg Williams for half a season, but Roger went WAY farther than that by suspending Williams "indefinitely". I also predicted Roger would make examples out of the Saints. He definitely came through in that regard, and then some, but not for the reasons I thought he would.

It wasn't so much the fact that the Saints were running a Bounty System that put Goodell in his patented "Hanging Judge Mode". It was the fact that Goodell confronted the Saints about their Bounty System TWO YEARS AGO, and they lied to him. The Saints first denied to the commissioner that the program even existed, then after acknowledging that lie, informed the commissioner that the program does exist and they will cease it immediately.

That was in 2010. Obviously, it didn't stop, and even more obviously, Goodell knew it too.

I'm not one of these blind followers of Goodell who applaud every single decision he makes, but Roger is spot on with this punishment in my opinion. It's bad enough to lie to Roger Goodell's face about something he already knows you're doing, but it's even worse to lie to him again when he gives you a second chance to clean up your act. The Saints weren't smart enough to recognize their second chance, and arrogantly continued the Bounty System.

The lesson ultimately learned? Don't mess with, or attempt to make a fool out of Roger Goodell. Good job Commissioner.

NFL Christmas Eve

We're at the eve of one of the biggest days of the NFL Year : The First Day of NFL Free Agency. This is a day where teams make swift, bold, and most importantly, very expensive decisions meant to improve their respective rosters.

Some of them work out (Reggie White, Deion Sanders), and some of them don't (Albert Haynesworth, Javon Walker). When they work out, they can result in Super Bowl titles. When they don't work out, they can set your franchise back in very frightening ways.

Each signing is significant, one way or another, but no matter who signs where, the prospect of your favorite NFL team getting bright shiny new toys to play with, will always get fans excited about the upcoming season.

Which brings us to the Chicago Bears. The Bears stand $22.6 million under the cap, and by all accounts are itchy to spend it. On the one hand, they can go the obvious route by pursuing a #1 wide receiver in Vincent Jackson or Marques Colston, while concurrently pursuing a Carl Nicks or Ben Grubbs to shore up an offensive line desperate for depth. On the other hand, they can give into temptation by pursuing Mario Williams thereby forming a front four with two of the most elite pass rushers in the game today.

Cutting to the chase as quickly as I can, I believe the Bears should roll the dice and aggressively pursue Mario Williams, and I'll give you my reasons:

First of all, I don't like Vincent "2 DUI's" Jackson, or Marques "My Knee Is More Fragile Than I Let On" Colston. Despite what their stats will tell you, I don't believe either one of them are the elite receivers Jay Cutler needs, not to mention the track record of teams breaking the bank on Free Agent Wide Receivers is not a good one in terms of winning Super Bowls. Did I mention Muhsin Muhammad?

Secondly, Phil Emery is known for being a college scout specialist. So hopefully that means he has a better idea of what to look for in the draft than Jerry Angelo. The Bears also have 8 draft picks this year, including two 3rd round picks. I believe the Bears can find a suitable receiver with their second or third round pick(s), which would be a much better bet than heavily investing in Jackson or Colston.

It should also bear mentioning that Vincent Jackson was a late second round pick in 2005 - and he was also the TENTH Receiver taken in that draft! Some of the names drafted ahead of VJAX? Braylon Edwards, Mike Williams, Reggie Brown, Matt Jones, and (drum roll) Mark Bradley.

Thirdly, Mario Williams is an elite pass rusher. Essentially he's a 27 year old version of Julius Peppers: freak athlete with unbelievable size and quickness who consistently gets to the quarterback despite constant double teams. Mario already has 53 sacks in 6 seasons, which is roughly the same pace Peppers had at age 27, but that's not the point. The point is what Mario would do with the Bears.

Mario Williams would open up so many possibilities for this Bears defense. Mario's mere presence would make it impossible for opposing offensive lines to double team both him and Peppers. Teams would have to pick their poison with their blocking schemes, and the match up problems become even more difficult since Peppers occasionally lines up at the 3 Technique, and Mario has no issue with being a stand-up linebacker/edge rusher on third downs like he was last season.

Finally, in this pool of available free agents, Mario Williams is the safest bet in terms of acquiring a game changer. Quite Frankly, this free agent pool is very sub par if you think about it. I've already gone over what I don't like about Jackson and Colston. If you feel Cortland Finnegan, Red Bryant, Matt Flynn, Brandon Carr, or Pierre Garcon are better bets than Mario, that's fine, but I'm not comfortable spending large money on them versus Williams.

If we're really being honest about how bad this pool is, lets discuss the fact that a guy with 4 neck surgeries in 18 months - including two fused vertebrae and a damaged nerve that may or may not regenerate, and hasn't been seen throwing a football in two years......is about to get at least $20 million from somebody simply because he's Peyton Manning.

Add all of that up, and Mario Williams makes a lot of sense and hopefully a lot of Bears dollars.

Yeah....This Actually Happened

Mutiny On The Bounty

The NFL continues to remind us that their footprint does indeed last 12 months per year, as news broke on Friday that the New Orleans Saints implemented and orchestrated a Bounty System for a period of 3 seasons. The chief orchestrator behind the Bounty System was their now former defensive coordinator Gregg Williams.

The details of the Bounty System are as follows: players received $1500 for "knockout hits", $1000 for "cart-off" hits with payoff amounts doubling and tripling if they took place during playoff games. There also is a memo from the league that Saints linebacker Jonathan Vilma put up a $10,000 bounty before a playoff game, as well as agent Mike Ornstein fronted the money for bounties at least twice. The investigation also concluded that bounty funds might have reached as much as $50,000 at one point.

The investigation into the bounties began after allegations arose that Saint defenders were targeting Kurt Warner and Brett Favre. As far as "who knew what when", Head Coach Sean Payton, and GM Mickey Loomis were very much aware of Williams' Bounty System. Even more galling, is that Saints owner Tom Benson also found about the Bounty System and told both Loomis and Payton to shut it down. Despite the mandate from Benson, Loomis and Payton did nothing to stop it.

There are also reports that Williams implemented a Bounty System when he was defensive coordinator for the Bills and Redskins.

The reaction has been pretty varied. Obviously Commissioner Roger Goodell spoke about it very foreboding terms, citing that player safety has never been more important than it currently is, and this behavior is in complete violation of player safety in addition to violating the rules and salary cap.

In terms of fans and media reaction, there has been everything from Doug Farrar of Yahoo Sports calling for a "lifetime ban" for Gregg Williams, to former player Matt Bowen pulling the "part of the game" card. Others are also pointing out that similar systems have existed for decades in the NFL, and that it's impossible to stop it, blah, blah, blah...

In my view, this is absolute garbage. 

First of all the league has rules against the Bounty System and they should be respected, even though they also have rules against taking steroids, and obviously those rules aren't being followed. Despite the league rules already in place, I don't necessarily have an issue with bounties being part of a locker room, or having a defensive coordinator orchestrate an entire system around it. My issue stems from a Bounty System encouraging/rewarding players to play with deliberate intent to injure, rather than for clean solid plays.

Bounties for interceptions, fumble recoveries, and touchdowns? Fine. Bounties for "Cart-offs", "knockouts", and "kill shots"? Hell no! There has been, and always will be a line in every level of football separating aggressive play designed to cause pain, and cheap shots designed to cause injury.

An example I keep referring people to is Bill "Romo" Romanowski. Romo was one of the dirtiest players whoever played the game. Among his most notable incidents were a helmet-to-helmet hit that broke Kerry Collins jaw...in a PRESEASON game. Romo also kicked Larry Centers in the head during a game, and most notoriously tried to break Shannon Sharpe's arm during a game. You can see footage of the Sharpe play here.

All of those incidents involved Romo trying to injure someone, versus taking out players cleanly, and they all cross the line between good aggressive play, and intent to cause injury. As a result, Romo was vilified and despised by both opponents AND teammates (see Marcus Williams). The reason for Romo's universal dislike is very simple: he played the game with intent to injure, and was justifiably seen as a dirty player.

It is this type of play that I feel Williams' Bounty System is encouraging, and there's plenty of evidence suggesting that it did occur with the Saints. From Adrian Peterson suggesting the Saints targeted his high ankle sprain, to Jay Cutler getting kicked in the throat during the Saints game in week 2, there's plenty of mounting evidence suggesting that the line is/was habitually crossed by the Saints.

I'm predicting that Goodell will be looking to make a bold statement in this situation. Goodell will make prominent examples of both Williams' and the Saints. I don't think it will be as big as a lifetime ban, but certainly will be along the lines of what the Spygate punishment was for the Patriots. Two Draft picks, Millions of dollars in fines, and definitely a half-season suspension for Williams' at least.

That's a good place to start.

A New Hope?

Like many others who found nothing else on TV this weekend, I watched a little bit of the NFL Combine. One of the more ingenious things the NFL has done over the last 8 years was airing The Combine live on NFL Network. It finally gave losers like me a chance to see with my own eyes how a NFL Prospect performed, rather than have one of their "experts" tell me what he saw on Total Access later that evening.

If you haven't seen the NFL Combine before, it mildly flirts with homo-eroticism by showcasing these over-muscled and super humanly strong/fast young men in skin tight clothing. While wearing said clothing, these prospects are then asked to go through a litany of football drills. Exactly what purpose does it really serve? Depends on who you ask since the actual evaluators won't let their true feelings be known until Draft Day. Either way though, the NFL Combine has become must-see TV for all NFL Draft Enthusiasts, and I count myself among them.

As I was watching today, I had a bit of an epiphany. Robert Griffin III (RGIII) became the story of the day, as he ran a 4.41 40 yard dash. Obviously RGIII is no stranger to anyone who follows college football since he's the most recent Heisman Trophy winner. Somewhere during the telecast, this question randomly popped into my head:

"Why is Tim Tebow worshipped, and RGIII isn't?

After all, there's nothing individually that Tebow had done in college that RGIII hasn't. RGIII also won the Heisman as Tebow did. RGIII set all kinds of conference records with his performance on the field. Here's the kicker though, RGIII graduated college in December of 2010 with a degree in Political Science, mainly because he wanted to "...get my grad school paid for while I'm already under scholarship". RGIII is aspiring to become a lawyer, and is pursuing his masters in Communications.

In terms of who impresses me off the field? That's not even a contest. There's Tebow and his incessant "I love god, blah, blah, blah" speech that seems to be stuck on "repeat" anytime a microphone is shoved in front of him. Then there's RGIII, who makes prescient statements like "This is unbelievably believable...It's unbelievable because in the moment we're all amazed when great things happen. But it's believable because great things don't happen without hard work." while accepting his Heisman Trophy. Game. Set. Match RGIII.

On the field? We'll have to wait until next season to find out for sure, but for my money I'm going on the record right now, RGIII will be a better QB in his first season than Tebow ever will be for his entire career.

Mark it down, right now. It's already a fact that RGIII is much faster than Tebow. It's already a fact that RGIII has a stronger and more accurate arm than Tebow, and it will soon be fact that RGIII will be drafted much higher than Tebow was.

Which brings me back to my original question. Why isn't RGIII worshipped the same way Tebow was coming out of college? The easy answer is the God Complex which Tebow suffers from appeals to the stupid out there, while I have yet to hear if RGIII mention any reference to an afterlife. The ugly answer is that RGIII's skin tone doesn't match Tebow's, but I don't buy that. Neither answer serves as a satisfactory one for me.

In my opinion, the answer appears to be that the NFL audience hasn't gotten a chance to get to know RGIII in detail yet. The good news is, they will get to know all about him very soon. When they do get to know RGIII, they are going to be very impressed with what they see and hear, on and off the field.

My hope is that they will be so impressed, that Tebow eventually becomes the "Oh Yeah Tebow....whatever happened to that guy?"

One Shining Moment....Not To Be

Hello dear readers. I apologize for the lack of posts. I blame my personal ban of all things NBA and the month of February for my recent departure. The lack of relevant sports activity notwithstanding, I thought I would take a moment to share a recent sports adventure I had this past week.

Living in the Bay Area, my sports radio options are pretty limited. There's the self-appointed "Sports Leader" (and ESPN backed) KNBR, and for the better part of two decades it's been KNBR or KNBR, in terms of options. 

KNBR represents everything that's wrong with sports radio these days. The station practically oozes all things ESPN Corporate Policy, while parading nothing but insipid and syrup spewing hosts that claim to be "hard hitting" all the while sending me to my smart phone to listen to WSCR The Score. All of that changed this past summer with the premier of 95.7 The Game.

The Game, while still pretty far from a finished product, is a refreshing alternative to the ESPN Propaganda Machine that is KNBR. It is obvious anytime you listen to The Game's broadcasts, the opinions offered are strictly theirs, and are not tied to some money-making machine operating out of Bristol, CT. Their hosts actually have original thoughts, that are well informed in addition to having credibility behind them, while maintaining a connection to the alienated Bay Area Sports Fan. So it would seem only natural that The Game would start a contest called "Lucky Break".

What's "Lucky Break" you ask? It is a sports reality competition the station is having with the purpose of finding an ordinary listener and giving him/her a full time position as an on-air talk show host. Think of it as a sports equivalent of American Idol. Naturally I was intrigued, and (you guessed it) I decided to compete.

How did I do? I'll get to that in a moment. First I must set the scene. The competition itself has 4 preliminary tryouts, with the idea of selecting a total of 16 second round qualifiers out of the 4 tryouts. My schedule allowed me to compete in the second tryout last Wednesday. The tryout was located at a bar/restaurant about 2 minutes away from where I work. At the tryout there were 39 other hopefuls alongside of me, all with the same goal of qualifying for the next round.

The judges had me (along with dozens of others) give "The Big Opinion", in which I'm responsible for giving a 90 second long rant on any particular Bay Area Sports subject (it's not as easy as it sounds). I decided to give my opinion on whether or not Barry Bonds is a Hall Of Famer. Oh yeah...did I mention that I had give my opinion live in front of the judges as well as my fellow competitors and the entire audience at the bar?

Needless to say, it's a pretty nerve-wracking environment. If you don't possess the necessary chops to verbalize your knowledge of a particular subject, you run the risk of complete embarrassment and humiliation from both the judges and the audience. The pressure is really on you to deliver, and it takes a lot of courage and/or self-delusion depending on your perspective, to get up there to perform.

Despite all of that pressure, I went ahead with my audition anyway. After all, I do have a history of performing live in front of an audience (starred in a play in college), and I've been told numerous times that I can be very engaging. I owed it to myself to see if I was up to the challenge of putting aside my fear, and giving it the best that I've got.

Now the story would be great if I advanced to the next round, however that wasn't the case. It wasn't that I bombed you understand. As a matter of fact, I thought I did pretty well, and I wasn't alone. The judges themselves complimented me on my knowledge, delivery, vocal inflection, and passion. They were all unanimous that I did a "good job". As you'll see if you click on the link below, the judges were not holding back if somebody sucked, so it's not like the review of my performance was being sugar-coated! They made it pretty clear to me that I didn't suck, plus my fellow competitors felt I did a great job as well, as I received numerous compliments on my performance after I sat down.

Could/Should I be mad I didn't advance to the next round? Maybe. Am I mad about it? Not really. This wasn't necessarily about winning the competition, or advancing to the next round. This had more to do with proving to myself that I could take my supposed sports expertise with my ability to entertain, and put on a 90 second show for people while putting aside my fear of embarrassment. In that regard I consider myself successful.

Despite that consolation however, I still felt I should have advanced. You can click HERE to see the guys that did advance as well as the guys who bombed.

So even though I didn't advance, I still had a fun time. Chances like this don't come along everyday, and at the very least I rolled the dice so to speak. I guess I'll be "stuck" posting my random sports stupidity on this platform, to which I really appreciate you guys still reading.

I just wish I had some footage of my performance so you could judge for yourself.

Super Bowl Round Up

Super Bowl XLVI was a good game. Not a great game, or even a memorable game, but a very efficiently played, physical game which came down to the wire with the New York Giants emerging (once again) as world champions. While the game itself might not be memorable, the outcome and legacy certainly is. The Giants now have beaten the Team of the Decade twice in the last four Super Bowls.

Back to the game itself for a moment, it was very obvious to me that the Patriots were completely not prepared for the game on the outset. A 12 men on the field penalty early in  the game was the biggest reflection of that. Rob Gronkowski's high ankle sprain injury was the subject of the mandatory week-long hype and speculation, but "Gronk" ended up being a non-factor throughout the contest. 

The Patriot offense did manage to get it going late in the first half, scoring a quick ten points to enter halftime with a 10-9 lead. The Giants on the other hand ran an effective mix of run-pass offensively, while Eli Manning was on target most of the day going 30-40 for 296 yards and the MVP to boot.

Obviously the play of the game was the catch made by Mario Manningham on the first play of what proved to be the game-winning drive for the Giants. Manning made a terrific pass to even get the ball to Manningham who was double-covered on the 38 yard reception. After the catch, Manning took chunks of yards from the Patriots defense - 16 yards to Manningham here, 14 yards to Nicks there - eventually putting the Giants in position to score the winning touchdown. A touchdown which Ahmad Bradshaw reluctantly scored while running the ball for a 6 yard TD.

Even though Chris Collinsworth called Bradshaw's TD "a mistake by the Giants", it proved to be vital since it meant not only that Brady and the Patriot offense had just 57 seconds left to score, but they had to score a Touchdown rather than a field goal. This proved to be too tall a task, and in the end the Giants walked away with the Vince Lombardi Trophy.

As far as this game's legacy, it will be largely remembered for Brady failing to join Terry Bradshaw and Joe Montana as the only quarterbacks to win 4 Super Bowls. It will also serve as yet another dent in the Belichick armor in my opinion, since he's now 3-2 in Super Bowls as a head coach despite his Spygate tactics.

Many people are saying that this game will put Tom Coughlin and Eli Manning as "locks" for the Hall Of Fame now. I'm not one of those people and here's my reason why. Tom Flores and Jim Plunkett also won two Super Bowls within 4 seasons, yet neither one are in the Hall Of Fame. So why are Manning and Coughlin "locks" while Flores and Plunkett aren't? I don't get the logic in that?

Regardless, the Giants are champions today, and as a Bears fan it gives me hope watching a 9-7 team that was left for dead at one point, win the Super Bowl. It makes you wonder what else is possible?