Category: Fantasy Football (Page 122 of 324)

Official 2009 NFL Draft Post & Rumor Mill

As the NFL draft rolls on over the next two days, I’ll post picks, thoughts and stay on top of any rumors that I hear and post them here. Enjoy.

2:55PM ET: Mike Mayock of the NFL Network claims that his “cell phone is blowing up” with reports that the Jets are trying to trade up to No. 2 for USC quarterback Mark Sanchez.

3:19PM ET: According to the South Florida Sun Sentinel, the Dolphins will select Connecticut cornerback Darius Butler at No. 25.

3:22PM ET: The Rams could trade back into the first round for middle linebacker Rey Maualuga according to NFL Network’s Steve Wyche.

3:38PM ET: I’m shocked the Chiefs passed on Aaron Curry, but all the pre-draft rumors that said Tyson Jackson would be their pick were obviously dead on. Jackson is the best 3-4 end in the draft and obvious was a commodity.

3:40PM ET: The Browns got exactly what they wanted with this trade. They weren’t in love with anyone at No.5 and managed to trade out. Great move – I wonder what kind of ransom the Browns got.

3:42PM ET: Mike Mayock just made a great point about the Jets trading up to No. 5. What team did they want to get ahead of to go all the way up to No. 5?

3:45PM ET: DE Kenyon Coleman, QB Brett Ratliff, S Abram Elam No. 17 and No. 57. A sleeper in this deal is Elam, who is one of the more promising safeties in the draft.

3:52PM ET: The Bengals select OT Andre Smith – another low character guy for their low-character roster. He is a tremendous talent, but he comes with a ton of baggage.

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Athlete Profile: Rey Maualuga

Intensity escapes the best of us. The amount of focus required to sustain a level appropriate for something as aggressive as collegiate football defense is hardly something to write off. Where does it come from? Can it be taught or learned? I’d like to hope so, though it seems a bit of a catch-22 in that in order to be intense enough to learn to be intense we must first be intense enough not to need to learn at all.

In any case, for those lucky enough to have it, raises seem to drop out of the sky and skirts appear to fly up into it. Rey Maualuga has it, and that’s gonna have to suffice for now since I am unaware of every single thing he does in his personal time (probably getting that 10% increase I should have had after landing the Gibson account). He’s been using that, along with his considerable speed and strength, to run roughshod over offensive lines and make tackles that look like Cthulu versus Howdy-Doody.

Well, maybe his past will give us a bit of a hint as to where this ferocious ability was acquired. Born on a military base in Oklahoma (OK, must be a lot of aggression and discipline there) to American Samoan parents, Maualuga then moved to Hawaii (you lost me). He reportedly began playing football in middle school after noticing that all the popular kids carried their pads to school. OK, that’s not that intense, reminds me of the reason I listened to Dave Matthews Band for a year.

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Athlete Profile: Michael Oher

Michael Oher is a big man. At 6’5” and 309 pounds that would seem rather obvious, but that’s not exactly what I’m talking about. Oher’s got quite a back story, a fact that hasn’t been lost on we in the profession of sports writing. A novel concerning his life leading up to his college career has not only been already released, but is in the works for becoming a feature film. While the material remains accurate, it seems reports of Oher’s intelligence (according to Oher) were exaggerated. But no worries, like I said, he’s a big guy.

And what is this life that resulted in a bestseller? OK, I’m not going into too much detail here, it’s been repeated in other places ad nauseam and I don’t want to throw up on my keyboard. Oher grew up more or less homeless, the son of a crack addict and a father who was never there. Roaming through schools, forgotten on holidays and birthdays, it wasn’t until he was taken in by the Tuohy family at 16 that things truly started to turn around for him. Living with the affluent Memphis family helped grant him the stability and backing needed to get him into a position to rise to national attention.

As if all that wasn’t enough to leave a man a bit bitter, he learned that his last name was, in fact, not his last name at all. While trying to obtain a drivers license, Oher learned that government records retained the name of Michael Williams, his biological father’s surname. A bit of a surprise for anybody I must say. Oher took it in stride, getting a license as Michael Williams for a time before eventually changing his legal name to Oher (Oher is from his mother’s side btw).

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Which position is the safest bet in the first round?

I was watching one of the many Mel Kiper and Todd McShay arguments on ESPN the other day [video], and Kiper was arguing that if McShay has Matthew Stafford ranked so high (McShay currently has Stafford ranked #8), then he should almost be a no-brainer for the Detroit Lions, who have the #1 overall pick and need a quarterback. McShay isn’t convinced that he’s a so-called “franchise” quarterback, so he says he would go another direction. (For the record, at the time Kiper called McShay “crazy” for having Stafford that high, but now he has the QB ranked #3 on his big board. It’s clear that Kiper’s pure hatred for McShay is causing him to slowly lose his mind.)

Anyway, the debate piqued my interest and got me wondering – when it comes to the first round of the NFL Draft, is one position safer than another? For example, if the Lions have three holes to fill (they have more, but bear with me) – quarterback, linebacker and tackle – and they can’t decide amongst the three players, is one position a safer pick than the other two?

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Jaguars sign Jones-Drew to new four-year contract

Jaguars’ running back Maurice Jones-Drew signed a new four-year, $32.8 million contract to become one of the heist paid backs in the NFL.

The contract is believed to top the six-year, $49.1 million deal signed by Clinton Portis of the Redskins in 2006. Steven Jackson of the Rams is the highest paid running back. He signed a five-year, 48.5 million deal last season. Larry Johnson of the Chiefs is next. He has five-year, $43.14 million contract.

Jones-Drew was entering the final year of his contract and was scheduled to make $535,000.
With the release of Fred Taylor, Jones-Drew, who averaged 4.8 yards a carry during his career, becomes the team’s feature back. He had 941 yards as a rookie and last season gained 824 yards on 197 carries and rushed for 12 touchdowns.

Jones-Drew has 34 touchdowns during his three-year career.

Jones-Drew totaled 1,389 yards from scrimmage last year and added 14 touchdowns. With Fred Taylor now in New England, if Jones-Drew can stay healthy he could approach 1,700 to 1,800 total yards and another 15-20 scores. That’s certainly worth what the Jags just paid him.

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