While Dustin Pedroia and Ian Kinsler both broke out in a big way last year, there is no second baseman I’d rather own than Chase Utley. That said, Utley is one of the toughest players to get a read on heading into draft season. There’s no doubting the Philly slugger’s studliness — his average season since 2005 is a cool .305-29-103-110-13, and there are few cushier gigs in baseball than hitting third in Philly’s stacked lineup. But after belting 25 homers before the break last season, Utley’s power evaporated in the second half thanks to a hip injury that required offseason surgery. He says he’ll be back in time for Opening Day and early spring training reports have been positive, but owners are still understandably concerned. When healthy, Utley is not only a surefire first-round selection but, considering the lack of depth at second base, he’s also a likely top-five pick in most drafts. How dramatically should the injury concerns affect his draft stock? I suppose that depends on how lucky you feel. Punk.
We’ve all heard the story of Mike Singletary’s halftime mooning a couple of weeks ago, but the guys at Bang! Cartoon wonder if this will become a league-wide problem. Check out the ‘toon below but beware of Crennel in Cleveland!
Can the Patriots make a Super Bowl run without Brady? Will they even make the playoffs?
Is Aaron Rodgers really this good?
Was Brandon Marshall serious when he said in the preseason that he was going to catch 140 passes this year? Does he know he’s got 14 more games to get there?
Did DeSean Jackson do it on purpose? No, seriously. The guy has a monster ego, so maybe he figured that dropping the ball before he crossed the goalline would make for a bigger story than a rookie simply snagging his first TD pass. …Okay, maybe not; but still….
Who put a voodoo hex on Seattle’s receivers?
But one of the more interesting questions floating out there is, why doesn’t Troy Brown have a job? He’s not a game changer by any stretch of the imagination, but he’s dependable. He’s also versatile, being able to play receiver or defensive back; battle-tested, having spent nine years in New England; and, of course, he’s a proven winner, playing a key role on three championship teams.
True, Brown is 37 and has a sketchy injury history, but wouldn’t he make sense to a lot of teams as added depth at receiver and in the secondary? Aren’t the Seahawks down three or 12 receivers? The Saints seem to make some sense, considering the Marques Colston injury and their leaky defense. As a Browns fan, I can personally vouch for Cleveland’s crummy play on each side of the ball, and with Donte Stallworth and Joe Jurivicius both down, there’s a need at receiver.
Of course, this all goes out the window if Brown simply isn’t healthy, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. Earlier this week, a Boston Herald report said that Brown was set to retire today, but now the Boston Globe says Brown is still on the fence.
“We’ll see,” [Brown] responded. “There’s always a chance [of playing].”
When guys like Koren Robinson are getting plucked off the scrapheap, how is it that Troy Brown is still unemployed?
“LeBron (James) isn’t a Cleveland guy. LeBron only plays for the Cavaliers, and who knows if he even likes the Cavaliers? He doesn’t like the Indians. He doesn’t like the Browns.”
The Browns receiver made his comments after LeBron James hung out on the Dallas sidelines during pregame warmups prior to the Cowboys/Browns game Sunday afternoon, hugging Terrell Owens and Adam “Don’t Call Me Pacman” Jones, chatting with owner Jerry Jones, and wearing a Yankees cap.
Cleveland is most definitely a football city, but LeBron is without question the face of Cleveland sports right now. That doesn’t mean that he has to root for every Cleveland sports franchise, but he crossed the line when he wore a Yankees hat to the game last night. That’d be like David Ortiz donning a Peyton Manning jersey during a Colts/Pats game in New England or, even worse, Tom Brady wearing a Yankees hat to a Sox/Yankees game at Fenway. You just don’t do it.
At the time, what irked me most wasn’t that LeBron wore the hat to the game, but that he taunted the fans — who are, of course, his fans during basketball season — by holding the hat above his head and egging on the crowd. It was an immature and classless move, and at the time I said that it spoke very poorly of his so-called loyalties to his hometown.
And now this.
As I mentioned previously, athletes are fans too, and they can root for whomever they want. I’m not ragging on LeBron for being a Cowboys fan or a Yankees fan or even a Bulls fan, all of whom he rooted for as a kid growing up in Akron. I do think it’s fair to call him a frontrunner, since all three of those teams were winning titles back then, but that’s not the point.
In fact, LeBron choosing to publicize his allegiances in front of Cleveland fans and, in the Indians/Yankees case, even taunting the fans in the process, isn’t even the point anymore. The point now, as Braylon Edwards pointed out, is simple: LeBron James isn’t a Cleveland guy. And that’s very bad news for the Cavaliers and their fans.
LeBron can opt out of his contract after the 2009-10 season, at which point the Cavaliers will be able to offer the star forward more money than any other team in the league. That may sound like a big advantage for the Cavs, and maybe it will prove to be. But working against Cleveland is the fact that LeBron’s contract with Nike will reportedly pay him more if he moves to a larger market like New York or LA. Maybe that’s just a rumor, because I haven’t found any concrete numbers on this, but it’s a widely reported rumor that LeBron has never bothered to shoot down. Add on top of that the fact that LeBron would make even more money in endorsements playing in a big city while also inflating his already enormous worldwide popularity, and however many more millions the Cavaliers can offer LeBron will look like chump change in the final equation.
And then, of course, there’s LeBron’s buddy Jay-Z, who just happens to be part owner of the New Jersey Nets. The Nets just happened to shed a bunch of salary by trading Richard Jefferson this offseason. They also just happen to be planning to move to Brooklyn and open a brand new arena in 2010. And Brooklyn just happens to be LeBron’s “favorite borough” in his favorite city of New York.
Throughout all of this city-wide “will he stay or will he go?” fretting, the one ace the fans thought they had up their sleeve was the fact that LeBron was a hometown guy who actually wanted to stay in Cleveland. Well, I’m not buying it, and neither is Braylon Edwards:
“He’s a guy from Akron who likes everybody but his hometown. I don’t know how that’s possible, but it is what it is, and he is who he is. You know, it’s LeBron.”
After bolstering their backfield by signing former Bengals running back Rudi Johnson, the Detroit Lions informed Tatum Bell of his release. Shortly after that, Johnson informed Matt Millen that someone had made off with his bags:
Johnson left his bags outside CEO Matt Millen’s office while he met with team officials and, ultimately, worked out a deal with the team.
So when Johnson came back to get his bags, they were nowhere to be found. Johnson and Millen were stumped.
Enter the eye in the sky.
The team checked the videotapes generated by the team’s in-house surveillance system, and they quickly identified the culprit.
So who might it have been? None other than Tatum Bell, who lost his gig with the Lions after Rudi arrived.
Per the source, Bell took the bags to the house of a female acquaintance. When confronted on the matter, Bell offered up some cockamamie story that he thought the bags belonged to someone he knew. The girl, however, said that she hadn’t seen Bell in several months and he showed up out of the blue and asked her to keep the bags for a while.
Johnson eventually retrieved his bags and, reportedly, charges were not filed.
Times are undoubtedly tough for Bell right now. Jobless and with a reputedly poor work ethic, it may be quite some time before he lands another NFL gig. He was understandably desperate. And pissed. But the silver lining here is that Bell solidified his legacy with this one brilliant decision. He’ll no longer be remembered as an over-hyped, underachieving fumbler. Now, he’s the guy who stole Rudi Johnson’s luggage. How sweet is that?
Meanwhile, Lions fans should be grateful that Rudi didn’t have to pursue Bell on foot, since recent history suggests his hammy wouldn’t have survived the chase. In which case the Lions may have once again been in the market for a running back, and since Tatum Bell already knows the system….
On the heels of a 10-6 season and following trades for Shaun Rogers and Corey Williams, many people were expecting big things from the Cleveland Browns this year. In fact, not only have many fans, prognosticators and other media folk predicted an AFC North title for Cleveland, but some truly brave souls even touted the possibility of a Super Bowl appearance for a team that hasn’t won a playoff game since 1995. Following Monday night’s embarrassing (for the team and its fans, anyway) 37-34 preseason loss to the Giants — a game that saw the defending champs dominate Cleveland’s starters on their way to a 30-3 lead early in the second quarter before the benches tightened up the final score — those calling for greatness from the 2008 Browns may need to rethink their stance.
In fact, we don’t need to dig too far into the archives to find a prime example of a chic preseason pick that proved it wasn’t ready for prime time. One year after finishing 3-13, the New Orleans Saints won 10 games in 2006 and advanced all the way to the NFC Championship Game. They featured an explosive offense led by a prolific quarterback (Drew Brees) who took advantage of a slew of top-notch weapons (Reggie Bush, Marques Colston, Deuce McAllister) en route to a Pro Bowl season and a shiny glass slipper heading into the 2007 campaign.
But the Saints’ Cinderella story went belly up from the get-go, losing 41-10 to the champion Colts on the season’s opening night and then dropping their next three games to start 0-4. New Orleans finally got into the win column in Week 6 against the Seahawks and then won their next three games to pull back to .500 at 4-4, but that would be the highlight of their uneven season, finishing out of the playoffs at 7-9. A season-ending knee injury to McAllister certainly didn’t help matters, but the biggest problem for the Saints was a defense that allowed more points (388) than the offense scored (379).
A closer look at New Orleans’ schedules for 2006 and 2007 reveals a troubling similarity: the 10 teams the Saints beat in 2006 had a combined .425 winning percentage (68-92), and the six teams they lost to owned a .520 winning percentage (50-46). In 2007, the seven teams they beat had a .437 winning percentage (49-63) while the nine teams that beat the Saints again owned a .520 winning percentage (75-69). What does that mean? For the most part, the Saints beat the teams they were supposed to beat in 2006 but couldn’t hold their own against the league’s better teams during the regular season. And while a 10-win season and an NFC Championship Game appearance were legitimate reasons for optimism heading into 2007, the trend held true last year, only this time it produced three fewer wins. In other words, the Saints weren’t a decidedly worse team in 2007 than they were in 2006, but they weren’t any better either, and they also weren’t as lucky.
So what does this tell us about the 2008 Browns? Maybe nothing, maybe everything. Cleveland beat 10 teams last year with a dreadful combined winning percentage of .343 (55-105), while the six teams they lost to sported a .572 percentage (55-41), a group that included the 16-0 Patriots. So just like the Saints before them, the Browns beat the teams they were supposed to beat but fell short against better competition. And just like the Saints, the Browns stuffed the stat sheet with breakout QB Derek Anderson taking full advantage of weapons like Braylon Edwards, Kellen Winslow and a revitalized Jamal Lewis while the defense was routinely gashed for big plays and big points.
Simply put, if the Browns want to prove their backers right and avoid the letdown that plagued the Saints last year, they’ll need to play better against better competition, especially on the defensive side of the ball. And they’ll need to do it on a much bigger stage, with the team scheduled for five primetime games throughout the season, including three on Monday night against the Bills, the Eagles and, ominously, the Giants. Beyond that, there are precious few gimmes on the schedule, with games against the Cowboys and Steelers to open the season, and matchups with the Jaguars, Redskins, Titans and Colts as well.
Cleveland is certainly talented enough to challenge for the AFC North crown and make a run in the playoffs, but so were the Saints last year. If this is going to be the kind of magical season that fans on the Erie shores have been waiting on for ages, the Browns will have to show more than they did Monday night.
Chadiha’s point that Favre had a lot of fun this past season while guiding the Packers to the NFC Championship game is well taken. I think most people are shocked that Favre elected to retire on the heels of such a successful season in Green Bay and with another promising season on the horizon. But to call his decision a mistake is arrogant, pretentious and unfair, and comes across as headline hunting more than anything else.
Brett Favre will regret his decision to retire at some point this fall.
He’ll be sitting at his home in Mississippi on a Sunday afternoon, relaxing with his family and he’ll realize what he’s missing, how precious an opportunity he passed on. It might be a simple pang of heartache. It could be a sudden jolt that sparks him to reminisce. But he will surely feel something that will remind him of how big a mistake he made when he finally ended his career as the Green Bay Packers quarterback.
Says who? Some guy sitting behind his computer who apparently has absolutely no idea just how agonizing this decision had to be for Favre? Granted, you don’t play for as long as Favre has and with as much passion as he did to not feel any sadness when you finally walk away, so it’s safe to say that he’s going to miss the game and his teammates and the fans and, perhaps, maybe even the spotlight. But Favre clearly thought the time was right to call it a career.
But apparently Favre should’ve consulted Jeffri Chadiha before making his decision.
Adrian Peterson is a stud. No doubt. His magical start to the season rightly had many people thinking back to draft day and wondering if any of the six teams that passed on Peterson would reconsider that decision today.
Well, maybe yesterday, but how about today? Peterson will reportedly miss up to three weeks after tearing a lateral ligament in his right knee Sunday. Fortunately for Peterson and the Vikes, it’s not one of the big ligaments — the ACL, MCL or even PCL — but it’s a huge blow to a Vikings team that hasn’t been able to do anything but run in their first nine games.
It’s also a big loss for the theory that the Cleveland Browns would’ve been better suited taking Peterson over tackle Joe Thomas at #3. Wrote ESPN’s Todd McShay:
Any of the six teams that passed on him originally might take a mulligan to get (Peterson) this time around, but the Browns look like the best fit right now as they could use a little more running to balance the seventh-best passing game (254.5 ypg) in the league.
Well, durability concerns were the primary reason those top six teams in the draft passed on Peterson, including the Browns. And now Peterson is out for several weeks. No, it’s not related to the collarbone injury that affected his draft stock last April, so some will probably blame a fluke occurrence. But that’s the point: injury prone players fall victim to fluke injuries. That’s why they’re injury prone. And Peterson, unfortunately, is injury prone.
It’s probably safe to assume that the Browns are perfectly content with Thomas. Cleveland nearly knocked off the hated Steelers yesterday for the first time in centuries and they’ve got one of the most potent offenses in football. QB Derek Anderson and WR Braylon Edwards get most of the attention, but their prolific passing game operates behind a much improved offensive line. It’s not all Thomas — the signing of G Eric Steinbach has been a big success — but the rookie sure looks like a franchise left tackle. And as many general managers and quarterbacks know, those don’t come along all that often.
Peterson, of course, looks like a franchise running back, but as a reader noted in a previous TSR post, it’s easier to find a great running back than a great tackle. In fact, in many cases, it takes a great tackle to make a great running back. A great running back isn’t going to make a great tackle, though. You need an offensive line to effectively run the football, and you need to run to win. Minnesota planted Peterson behind one of the better offensive lines in football and Peterson exploded. Put Peterson behind a Browns line that doesn’t include Thomas and he doesn’t lead the league in rushing eight games later, and he certainly doesn’t own the record for most rushing yards in a game.
But the most obvious proof that the Browns made the right call is in the numbers. They’re 5-4 and they’re scoring 28.3 points per game with a running back (Jamal Lewis) averaging 64 rushing yards per game. The Vikings, meanwhile, are 3-6 and they’re scoring 18.4 points per game with a running back (Peterson) averaging 120 yards per game.
LeBron James has never kept his fan loyalty to the Yankees a secret. In fact, LeBron announced to millions of people last weekend while hosting “Saturday Night Live” that he was going to be rooting for the Yankees, even if they drew the Indians in the first round of the playoffs.
Hey, everyone has a right to root for whichever team they want, even professional athletes. To each his own, right? But as a Cleveland sports fan myself, I’m not down with LeBron showing up for Game 1 at the Jake Thursday night wearing a Yankees cap, and then taunting the fans with the hat during the game. That just doesn’t sit right with me, and judging by this message board, it doesn’t sit right with a lot of Cleveland fans.
Cleveland is most definitely a football city, but LeBron is without question the face of Cleveland sports right now…at least until Brady Quinn takes the Browns to the Super Bowl. That doesn’t mean that LeBron has to root for every Cleveland sports franchise, but he crossed the line when he wore a Yankees hat to the game last night. That’d be like David Ortiz donning a Peyton Manning jersey during a Colts/Pats game in New England or, even worse, Tom Brady wearing a Yankees hat to a Sox/Yankees game at Fenway. You just don’t do it.
Yes, athletes are fans too, and they all rooted for other teams before they landed their current gigs. I get that. We all get that. But fans need to feel connected to their superstar players, to feel like they’re rooting for one of their own. LeBron showing off his Yankee pride at the Jake doesn’t have any effect on what he’s going to do on the basketball court this coming season, but it certainly has an effect on the fans’ relationship with him. That’s not to say that he’s going to get booed at The Q, but it creates that much more separation between the fans and the player.
Even worse, it leads to even more uncertainty about LeBron’s future in Cleveland. After all, if he’s not loyal to his hometown baseball team, then how loyal is he going to be to his hometown basketball team when his contract runs out, especially if a big market franchise has the cap room to give him a max deal?
Take note, LeBron: If you’re going to side with the enemy, do it in the comforts of your own home.
Have some thoughts on what’s going to this weekend? The Colts travel to Baltimore, Philly visits New Orleans, the Bears host Seattle and the Patriots head west to face the Chargers.
Bullz-Eye.com’s Anthony Stalter broke down all four games and will follow the playoffs through the Super Bowl on Feb. 4. Let’s hear what you think will happen this weekend.
