The Sports Curmudgeon

Watching the Bears’ demolition of the Saints yesterday, I noticed that the Bears got significant contributions from three rookies that they drafted last April. I really don’t like the idea of an instant analysis of a teams’ draft the week after it happens because it really does take time (usually several seasons) to see what the fruits of any given draft will be. But when the Bears can go to the Super Bowl and get important contributions from Mark Anderson, Devin Hester and Danieal Manning, that has to mean that the Bears’ scouting and drafting department did a pretty good job last year.

A quick – and absolutely not an exhaustive – survey tells me that three other teams in the NFL had productive drafts last season too. The Houston Texans weren’t all that good this year but they started as many as five of their draft picks for significant games during the season. Yes, I know that these guys were starting for a not very good team, but when you can five rookie starters in a draft, it was a pretty successful weekend. The Ravens started Haloti Ngota and Dawan Landry on their highly successful defense this year - - and their punter was a rookie too. Meanwhile, don’t forget the Jets who drafted two offensive linemen (Ferguson and Mangold) on the first round and started both of them all year long and made the playoffs. Oh, and the Jets found Leon Washington still on the board on the second day of the draft too. Successful drafting is a large part of a successful franchise in the NFL.

In case you have been brainwashed by the Washington Redskins’ front office and have come to believe that the draft is not all that important, please look at the last four teams playing in the NFL this year.

Name the five key players on the Pats; Brady, Seymour, Samuel, Bruschi and Wilfork? If not the top five, those guys are five of the top eight; and all five were Pats’ draftees.

Name the five key players for the Colts; Manning, Freeny, Harrison, Wayne and Addai? If not the top five, these guys are five of the top eight and all five were Colts’ draftees.

Name the top five players for the Saints; Brees, McAllister, Bush, Colston and Smith? If not the top five, these guys are five of the top eight and four of the five – not Brees – were Saints’ draftees.

Name the top five players for the Bears; Urlacher, Brown, Grossman, Vasher and Jones? If not the top five, these guys are five of the top eight and four of the five – not Jones – were Bears’ draftees.

Last week, I read that OJ Simpson said that his book on how he would have murdered his wife and her friend – had he done it of course – was actually written by a ghost writer and he wasn’t responsible for that. Oh swell; that makes things just fine. Let’s review the bidding here. OJ didn’t write the book but stood to profit from it and he was making a TV special on the book for FOX TV and was on the hook to hit the talk shows to pump up the book. So, for something he didn’t do or didn’t write, he was going to go around and fill the air with a lot of fiction because he had nothing knowledgeable to say about the subject - - allegedly. Time to cue Rod Stewart:

“…The honesty’s too much …

NFL teams employ people to provide spin to events to make the team or their players look good. The Cleveland Browns either need to pay their folks a bonus for this spin or fire the lot of them. You make the call. Braylon Edwards has been a huge disappointment to the Browns ever since they took him with a very high pick in the first round. In addition, he’s one of those guys who is never to blame for anything bad that happens; he always manages to deflect at least a big part of the blame to others – coaches and/or teammates. Now the Browns have come to his defense thanks to their spin-meisters. Get this; it’s hard on Edwards having to play in Cleveland because he went to Michigan and Cleveland is an overwhelmingly Ohio State city. Hello? If that’s such a big deal, why the hell did the Browns draft him – or any other Michigander – in the first place? Give me a break!

Michael Strahan and his wife have concluded their very public and very messy divorce action. The court ruled that Strahan’s wife would get $15.3M – half their marital assets – as prescribed in the prenuptial agreement that Strahan’s lawyers gave her to sign. Strahan tried to get the court to give her less; the court said the prenup should stand as signed. So, let me get this straight. Strahan had a set of lawyers draw up a prenuptial agreement to protect him and it wound up costing him $15.3M plus legal fees during the divorce. Where did he find that kind of legal advice?

Remember, I said Michael Vick was just plain stupid for trying to smuggle a water bottle with a hidden compartment onto an airplane – whether or not the secret compartment had marijuana in it. I said it would not help him with his endorsements. Well that seems to be coming true. Air Tran was one company he had an endorsement deal with and it was an Air Tran flight he was trying to board when the TSA inspectors would not let him get onboard with the water bottle. Last week, Air Tran took down one billboard in the Atlanta area that had Michael Vick’s image on it. As I said, this is not good for him; what he did was stupid.

The Dolphins hired a coach – Cam Cameron – last week. I’m glad they did; now I don’t have to worry that someone would call me to see if I was interested in the job. They were interviewing everyone else, so it couldn’t have been too much longer before they got to my name in the phone book. Here’s the strange part about the deal in Miami. According to the papers, Cameron will make $2.5M per year on average for four years. Meanwhile, defensive coordinator, Dom Capers, just signed on for three years in Miami at a reported $8.1M. Do the math folks, the defensive coordinator will make more than the head coach on a per year basis. Does that make any sense to anyone?

Having watched three weekends of good NFL playoff football, I recognized yesterday afternoon one of the things that really adds to my enjoyment of these games. The really annoying crawl across the bottom of the screen with data for fantasy football leagues wasn’t there. What a nice way to start the New Year; would that it would be the case for all of 2007…

Finally, here’s an observation from Greg Cote of the Miami Herald regarding the Dolphins’ coaching search:

“Mike Shula was the most intriguing of the five finalists for the Dolphins job, of course. Older brother David failed as a head coach with the Bengals and Daddy Don is 77. Still, I’m not sure if Mike had the right strategy promoting himself as the Best Available Shula.”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………