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      Offseason Blueprint: Seattle Seahawks

      February 12, 2009 /

      Notable Free Agents: Leroy Hill, LB; Leonard Weaver, FB; Maurice Morris, RB; Rocky Bernard, DT; Bobby Engram, WR.

      Projected 2009 Cap Space: $900,000

      Draft Order: 4

      Top Needs: The Hawks need to add depth to an offensive line that has injury and age concerns. The defensive line could stand to add depth as well and this team really needs a playmaker on the offensive side of the ball. Safety and even quarterback could be addressed as well.

      Offseason Outlook: Jim Mora is set to take over the reins in Seattle as Mike Holmgren puts his coaching career on hold. Perhaps the biggest thing that needs to be addressed this offseason is something the Seahawks have no control over – health. The injury bug hit this team like a runaway train last year and it never recovered.

      Many early mocks have the Hawks selecting Texas Tech wide receiver Michael Crabtree with the fourth overall pick. Not a bad choice considering this team needs a major playmaker on the offensive side of the ball and Crabtree is easily the best wideout of the ’09 draft class. It’s hard to argue against taking a 6’3”, 214-pound receiver who has outstanding leaping ability and soft hands. If he winds up in Seattle, he would dramatically upgrade the wideout position.

      The Seahawks’ top unrestricted free agent is 26-year old linebacker LeRoy Hill, who the team would love to retain, but his marijuana arrest in January complicates things. If nothing else, his arrest could knock his price tag down a bit, which means Seattle could have an easier time retaining Hill, who is one of the better young linebackers on the market. It’ll be interesting to see how this situation develops.

      At some point, the Seahawks will address their offensive line, whether it’s in free agency or the draft. It’s doubtful at this point that Seattle spends its first round pick on an O-linemen, since the current starting five is good enough to start again next year. But the group – led by left tackle Walter Jones – is susceptible to injuries and is aging. While technically sound and smart, the starting five lacks a physical mauler, so the Hawks might add depth at all positions in order to create competition in camp.

      Defensively, again, staying healthy is key because the front seven is pretty good as is, although Hill and DT Rocky Bernard are both free agents so if they depart the team will need to address those areas. The Hawks also have a size issue in the secondary, but Kelly Jennings and Marcus Trufant are still quality corners and the team could do a lot worse at safety with Deon Grant and Brian Russell. Still, look for Seattle to add depth to the unit this offseason, perhaps in the middle rounds come April.

      Finally, the quarterback issue will likely be addressed in the draft. Matt Hasselbeck says his back is once again healthy, but look for the Hawks to draft a signal caller that could challenge Seneca Wallace and Charlie Frye.

      NFL

      Bad call shifts momentum in Duke/UNC battle

      February 12, 2009 /

      Let me be clear — the call I’m about to discuss was NOT the reason that Duke lost the game last night. The Tar Heels played terrific in the second half and the Blue Devils simply did not. But the call in question indirectly set up North Carolina’s run.

      Check out the video of Kyle Singler elbowing Tyler Hansbrough.

      The first shot of it is at the 0:05 mark in real time. It’s tough to see, but you get the sense for how difficult it would be for Singler to stop his elbow after it slips off the ball. You can also hear that the whistle blew after the elbow, so he still had the right to fight for the ball.

      The first slow mo shot is at the 0:25 mark. Singler is clearly trying to rip the ball out from in between Hansbrough’s legs and his hand slips off the ball on the third attempt. He’s not thinking about what might be behind him and Hansbrough isn’t really doing anything that would warrant an elbow to the face. Plus, this scrum occurred just 16 seconds into the second half. There really wasn’t enough game time for Singler’s temper to get to the point that he’d intentionally elbow something in the face. Remember, most of these shots are in slow motion, so while it might seem like a player could stop his arm when it slips off the ball like that, in reality it’s moving much faster. It was an accident.

      Dick Vitale and the officials overreacted. Singler was called for a technical, so North Carolina got two free throws. At that point in the game, Duke led 52-44, but more importantly, it was Singler’s third foul. After North Carolina had almost tied it up, Singler picked up his fourth with 12:55 to play and had to come out of the game. That’s when the Tar Heels started to pull away. When he returned a few minutes later, he couldn’t challenge shots on the defensive end like he normally would have, and that led to a couple of North Carolina buckets.

      In the end, the Tar Heels won, 101-87, so it’s clear that this call wasn’t the deciding factor in the game. The Blue Devils had plenty of time to overcome that technical, but they shouldn’t have been put in that position in the first place.

      This is a great win for North Carolina. They now have the inside track for an ACC regular season championship, which usually results in a #1 seed in the NCAA tournament. In order for Duke to get back to that level, they’ll have to shrug off this 2-3 stretch and string together some wins, including a victory on March 8 in Chapel Hill.

      Hats off to Tyler Hansbrough and Danny Green who managed a 4-0 record at Duke during their careers at North Carolina. That’s a truly impressive accomplishment.

      College Basketball, Television, Video

      Dunn and Abreu are off the market – is Manny next?

      February 12, 2009 /

      With Bobby Abreu set to sign a one-year deal with the Angels and Adam Dunn set on a two-year contract with the Nationals, one would assume that Manny Ramirez’s name will be the next to come off the free agent market.

      Rumor has it that Abreu and Dunn were the Dodgers’ backup plan if they couldn’t work out a deal with Ramirez, although according to L.A. GM Ned Colletti, that has never been the case.

      Manny RamirezRamirez stands alone among available sluggers now. Adam Dunn and Bobby Abreu are off the market, Dunn gone to the Washington Nationals and Abreu to the Angels, two signings greeted with a shrug at Chavez Ravine.

      “I don’t expect them to impact us,” Dodgers General Manager Ned Colletti said.

      It’s Manny or nothing for the Dodgers. They never said anything different. There appears to be Manny money in the budget, reserved for him, not intended to be spent otherwise.

      I think everybody is going to need a hard drink after this situation is over. I don’t even know what to write anymore. This is like watching two chip leaders at a poker game and neither of them wants to put the other one in. Somebody (the Giants) should just walk up to the table and flip the whole damn thing over and end this charade.

      MLB

      Suspension coming for A-Rod?

      February 12, 2009 /

      According to USA Today, baseball commissioner Bud Selig hasn’t ruled out suspending Yankees’ third basemen Alex Rodriguez after he admitted to using steroids from 2001 to 2003.

      Alex RodriguezSelig and Major League Baseball officials realize any attempt to suspend Rodriguez would be challenged by the players union since the penalty phase of the testing policy was not implemented until 2004. Yet Selig said he sent a memo banning steroids around 1997 and that it was illegal to possess them without a prescription.

      “It was against the law, so I would have to think about that,” Selig told USA TODAY’s Christine Brennan in his first comments since Rodriguez’s admission. “It’s very hard. I’ve got to think about all that kind of stuff.”

      Rodriguez would be the first to serve a suspension without testing positive during the penalty years.

      “I don’t want to create any false hope,” he said, “but I am saddened. This is breaking my heart, I don’t mind telling you that.”

      Sorry, Bud, but you can’t start punishing players now for rules you never had in place to begin with. If you didn’t want to enforce a steroid policy at the time A-Rod took performance-enhancers, then you can’t turn around six years later and punish him.

      This is just another situation that shows Selig’s utter incompetence. And it’s a joke to hear that Selig is “saddened” by all of this. Please. You’re telling me Selig didn’t know all of this was going on? He’s turned a blind eye to all the steroid talk and allowed the union to get away with whatever it wanted because the dollars were pouring in again after the ’93 strike. Selig’s reaction to all of this is laughable.

      MLB

      Strawberry has a book coming out…this should be good.

      February 12, 2009 /

      Instead of being a public advocate of the dangers of drugs and alcohol, former baseball star Darryl Strawberry has decided to write a book to gloat about how much cocaine and sex he had when he was a player.

      Darryl StrawberryStrawberry has a new book coming out in April, and something tells me his ex-teammates aren’t going to appreciate the contents much. Strawberry’s claims about all the cocaine they did and the women they had sex with — sometimes during games — probably won’t sit well.

      “We were the boys of summer. The drunk, speed-freak, sneaking-a-smoke boys of summer,” writes onetime home-run legend Darryl Strawberry in “Straw: Finding My Way,” out in April from Ecco. “[An] infamous rolling frat party . . . drinking, drugs, fights, gambling, groupies.”

      Beer “was the foundation of our alcoholic lifestyle,” he writes. “We hauled around more Bud than the Clydesdales. The beer was just to get the party started and maybe take the edge off the speed and coke.”

      The team’s mantra on the road, he writes, was to “tear up your best bars and nightclubs and take your finest women . . . The only hard part for us was choosing which hottie to take back to your hotel room. Lots of times you . . . picked two or three.”

      Then there are these little tidbits about how the Mets would kill time between innings.

      Although he doesn’t name names, Strawberry relates how team members picked out girls from the stands for quickies. He once watched a pitcher march a frisky fan to a private room for oral sex: “I was jealous. When I saw her heading back to her seat, I gave her a sign. She smiled, turned right back around, and met me in that same little room . . . I had to be quick and run back out on the field.”

      Another time, “I was in the clubhouse, having one last quickie with this cute little Florida girl. Charlie Samuels, the equipment manager, came in and caught us. He just stood there shaking his head while I finished up.”

      But, hey, at least they weren’t taking steroids right? That might give them a competitive advantage. All cocaine does is give you superhuman strength and help you ignore any pain you might be feeling. Steroids don’t do any of that.

      Great point. So what’s worse, players that are all roided up or the ones who were all hopped up on cocaine and doing unpaid whores in between innings?

      The majority of fans just shake their heads and move on when it comes to guys like Strawberry and Dwight Gooden doing cocaine. But Alex Rodriguez, Barry Bonds and Mark McGwire are “ruining the game we love” and should be despised. To me, whether morons like Strawberry and Gooden are doing cocaine or cheaters like A-Rod and Bonds are doing steroids, it’s all the same – they should be lumped up in the same category of players that have helped ruin baseball. (And no, I’m not naive to think that some players today aren’t doing hard drugs or the same things Strawberry was doing back in the day.)

      If parents needed any more reason not to allow their kids to worship athletes, idiots like Strawberry should do the trick. Outside of guys like Kurt Warner, Warrick Dunn, Derek Jeter and a few others, I would highly stress parents to point their kids in another direction when it comes time for them to start having role models.

      MLB

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