"Events and Awards" Archive

Cincinnati Bengals rookie Andy Dalton has shown a lot of poise and promise, but Cam Newton deserves the ROY nod.

I have this theory-some people don’t watch sports for the love of the game…they watch just to have something to argue about. And in my mind, arguing for Drew Brees to be MVP or Andy Dalton to be offensive rookie of the year is an example of that. There’s no doubt that Drew Brees and Andy Dalton have been impressive, but there’s also no doubt that Aaron Rodgers and Cam Newton have redefined the word.

If you want to know why I think there’s no debate about Rodgers being MVP, look no further than the New Orleans Saints games against the Tampa Bay Bucs and the Saint Louis Rams. Both were embarrassing displays. New Orleans looked like a team without any identity in particular on offense and that can be traced back to poor performances by Brees. Brees finished both of those games with a quarterback rating below 74. Brees has had 5 games with multiple interceptions-NFL listed his number of interceptions at 14 but I think it might be 13. Either way, it’s more than double Rodgers’ number which is 6. Brees threw three INTs against Tampa Bay which certainly doesn’t have anything approaching a great defense.

And this has been the issue with Brees-among a lot of very brilliant games he throws in some serious doozies that are rare enough as to be uncharacteristic but common enough to be expected. This year Rodgers was by far the most consistent quarterback in the league-with only two games in which his passer rating dipped below 100- and he shouldn’t have to share honors with anyone else.

I realize that stats don’t tell the whole story but in the case of Rodgers they come mighty close. Not only is Rodgers consistent numerically he’s been largely consistent across game quarters as well.

Onto the darling rookies. I think we’ve all been pretty surprised by both Dalton and Newton. I’m actually more surprised by Dalton than Newton though…I guess because I was aware of the fact that Dalton had little experience taking snaps under center, I thought he’d be a slow moving target for a lot of professional front lines, and his personality on Gruden’s QB camp just didn’t strike me as formidable. But Dalton has had very little trouble adjusting to the pro style offense (and, more importantly the speed of the pro defense) and he’s better than many of the 2nd year guys that are playing right now. And, quite frankly, though still mistake prone he may be in some areas outperforming some 3rd and 4th year dudes like Mark Sanchez and Joe Flacco. But he is certainly not outperforming his fellow rookie Cam Newton.

In the past few weeks as Newton stormed through a slew of records including Peyton Manning’s rookie passing record, those championing Dalton over Newton have quieted a bit. I’m glad, because there simply should be no debate about Newton’s worthiness.

Newton has single-handedly reinvigorated a franchise that had barely been relevant since jailed wide receiver Rae Carruth pathetically stuffed himself in a trunk in an attempt to avoid capture for the murder of the mother of his child. Now, even volatile-but-talented wide receiver Steve Smith can’t hide his delight in catching Newton’s passes. it hasn’t calmed his temper, but it’s ignited his enthusiasm for sure. Newton has been on fire and he’s done it all with a defense that barely gives him 5 minutes to catch his breath in between possessions.

Beyond passing yards and rushing touch downs, Newton and Dalton are neck in neck statistically. But Dalton has the benefit of a more balanced team-including a MUCH better defense- and some scary weapons on offense including the talented rookie AJ Green and the high flying acrobatic Jerome Simpson. Thus it’s no wonder that Dalton is headed to the playoffs his rookie season while Newton is headed home.

Dalton will get his due. But this year Newton has really made a name for himself. And I’m thinking that sooner rather than later Newton will be among the youngest to ever join the much talked about cadre of elite quarterbacks.

Buffalo Bills Safety Bryan Scott Wants Kids to Pick Their Passion!

I’ve always wanted my own “tv” show and so I’m making those dreams come true on you tube. Starting this week I will be vlogging regularly and interviewing quite a few players and football journalists.

First up was Buffalo Bills Safety Bryan Scott. Bryan is extremely talented, he plays the piano and tenor saxophone (like me!) among other instruments. He co-produced his own song called “Dedicated” as part of the relaunch of his charitable organization that helps kids pick and fund their passions.

To boot, he is giving away an ALL EXPENSE paid trip to the Super Bowl. So check out my interview with him-he’s a lot of fun. Download “Dedicated” on  itunes (which you can hear playing in the video) and visit showyourdedication.com to enter the contest. Good luck!

ABOUT THE “SHOW YOUR DEDICATION” CONTEST
The “Show Your Dedication” Video Contest is an open call for people to create their own video that showcases their personal passion—for music, sports, theater, fashion, cooking, family, a career, community service, or any other hobby or interest that is the subject of their dedication.

Here’s how the contest works:
1. Produce your own ad or promotional video. Create an advertisement or promotional video (up to one minute) that showcases photos, video footage and/or natural audio of you experiencing your passion.

2. Upload your video on ShowYourDedication.com. Visit and join ShowYourDedication.com by December 5, 2011 to upload your video and complete an entry form explaining your passion and what you would do with the $5,000 donation to support your passion.

3. Promote your video during General Submission voting. All video submissions will be screened and, upon approval, posted on ShowYourDedication.com for the general public to view and vote for their favorites. Invite your friends and family to view and vote for your video during this time. The general public will have unlimited votes during this General Submission voting period before December 5, 2011. The TeamBScott review panel will select ten finalists based on the video’s creativity, dedication to the passion and total number of votes. Ten finalists will be announced and posted on ShowYourDedication.com on December 20, 2011.

4. Promote your video during Finalist voting. The final winner will be selected out of ten finalists based solely on votes. So, if you make the final 10, you will need to promote, promote, promote. Ten votes will be allotted per person during this Finalist voting period. Encourage as many of your friends and family, as well as their friends and family, to view and vote for your video.

Video submissions for the contest will be accepted on October 27, and voting for videos will begin November 4. The finalist who receives the most votes by January 3, 2012 will be selected as the Show Your Dedication Video Contest Grand Prize winner. The winner will receive a Big Game Prize Package, including two tickets to the Super Bowl 2012 in Indianapolis, plus round-trip airfare and hotel accommodations. The winner will also receive a donation up to $5,000 to directly support the pursuit of his/her passion and a feature in the compilation music video for the single Dedicated.

I probably should have been a better wet blanket and described how much I loathe the draft beforehand. But as I always say, late hate is better than no hate at all. Let’s just go ahead and get into why the draft should take its talents to the recycle bin.

1. The lead up. Ryan Mallet is a thug! Nick Fairly skipped dinner with the Dolphins! Cam Newton can’t call plays! Mark Ingram may go early in the first round! OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD!

The lead up to the draft is like a bunch of teenage girls gossiping about all the hottest Hollywood actors. There’s rumor, exaggeration, talk of “strong arms” and personality. Good Lord, sometimes I’m confused about whether the media wants to watch these guys play football or take them behind the bleachers and make out.

Most of what’s printed amounts to nothing at all. For example, in this year’s draft the bulk of the media, especially the big dogs at ESPN, said over and over that there was no clear #1 pick, yet when the Carolina Panthers beeped Cam Newton 911 and called him on his cell phone, it sure didn’t feel like a huge surprise.

The lead up even had Running Back Mark Ingram and his agent fooled into thinking he had a chance to be called in the top 10 of the first round. In this pass-oriented league, where backs are increasingly needed to block and be short yardage power runners, guys who have already had surgery on their knees are lucky to be in the conversation.Yet and still, it felt like forever by the time the Saints chose Ingram at 28, even though it was about right looking at the circumstances.

This shows that during the draft, common sense takes a seat in the back of the bus right next to its lonely ass sister the truth.

2. Draft Manipulation. Many of those baseless, common-senseless (Is this a word? I’m rolling with it) stories are the result of teams and the media working in concert to drive down the value of players. Teams would love to draft above their expectations. Scouts leak information (sometimes untrue) to a media that is increasingly hustling for clicks. A media that holds stories for fact-checking about as well as a toddler holds urine.

Reading anything draft-related during the month of April is really only beneficial to people whose blood pressure is too low.  When it comes to blatant things that aren’t true—example, Auburn had no pass plays—I’m more amused than anything else. But when you start attacking the character of 20 year old boys for the sake of clicks and signings, the draft starts to feel a little skeevy.

I was happy to see the guys over at NFL Gridiron take on the case of Ryan Mallet who they say, explicitly, was the victim of a smear campaign. The article is really in depth and a good read if you have the time. I can’t remember there being such a coordinated attempt to drive down a guy’s draft value in recent history. For that reason alone, I’m hoping that Mallet becomes a real star in the league.

3. The Draft is A Useless Spectacle. The NFL’s fearless leader Roger Goodell, who spends most of his days taking dictation on three way calls with Jerry Jones, Robert Kraft, and Dan Snyder, finally put all his notes together. Borne of those glorious notes, was a piece of shit pro-union opinion editorial he published in the Wall Street Journal.

One of Goodell’s key points in support of the CBA process is that without it there’d be no draft. While Goodell makes a draft-free NFL sound like utter chaos with large shirtless black men running the streets desperately trying to find people with pebble colored leather balls that need’a throwing and’a catchin’, the mere thought of having no draft set my loins a fire—and not in a pill commercial way.

Quite frankly, the draft is really for entertainment value. It doesn’t benefit the players, teams, or fans in any real way. I like the idea of all college guys being free agents when they come out of the draft. The same way I graduated from college and looked for a job that both fit my skill set and hopefully was in a location where I wouldn’t mind living, football players should be able to do the same. I’d like to see each team go for whatever players they want and need. And if nobody wants to play for your team, as Tim Gunn says, you better “make it work.”

Once in the league, players have to wait 6 years for free agency, I like the idea of giving them some freedom at the beginning. If owners were serious about spending more wisely, they’d see a benefit to less speculation and more practicality. Speculation can do to a sports league the same thing it does to gas prices. Oh Hi David Stern, I didn’t see you standing there.

Another advantage to dropping the draft is that it would encourage teams to discover talent down draft, and be less likely to blow their budget on a first round pick. That’s part of the reason why drafting high is both a gift and a curse for many teams. I’d rather see my team trade out of the first round than take a high cost first round pick if the talent available doesn’t fit their top priorities.

Often teams are so busy playing strategy in the draft, trying to keep certain players away from other teams, appeasing fans who want certain “stars,” shopping for personnel that fit becomes an afterthought.

I know that the draft is a sacred lamb, but I’m sure we can find some other spectacle to promote, perhaps a national signing day of some sort? I’m flexible.

Congrats to the Packers. They lost key players to injury in the Super Bowl and still managed to pull out a victory.

LEAD UP AND PRE-GAME

Let’s start out by saying, I don’t give a damn about the Super Bowl unless my team is playing. I just watch because I love football. The Super Bowl becomes even more of a production every year. Now we’re up to two full weeks of Super Bowl talk all around mainstream media plus a weekend of stories and interviews and flashbacks etc.

I do enjoy “some” of it. But now that the NFL has replaced baseball as America’s sport, the level of attention paid to the Super Bowl from all spheres has become overwhelming. So much so, I really didn’t pay much attention to most of it.

As far as the pre-game was concerned, I get making Super Bowl a distinctly Americans event-we love holidays and nostalgia. But this year’s Super Bowl was full of unwelcome and uncomfortable propaganda. All sorts of lines about “freedom” and “independence” read by players, coaches, and military men and women, among others. It felt like it was airing on the history channel, only the Fox News version where there are colonies and colonizers but no small pox blankets or slaves.

In fact, they actually talked about the colonies. Awkward. The tone of pre-game production wasn’t my cup of tea. I suggest the NFL keep the history references to a minimum unless they’re referring to the evolution of the game.

The National Anthem And Whatnot

In a show of shameless promotion, Fox decided to have Lea Michele from the sitcom(?) “Glee” sing “America the Beautiful.” Unfortunately, it sounded ugly. Too bad the NFL doesn’t have any Canadian expansion teams, cause that would have been a good reason to drag Tamia out to sing “Oh Canada.” ANYTHING would have been better.

Christina Aguilera’s rendition of the Star-spangled Banner was simply awful! She oversang, messed up the words, and looked like a goth blob. Most people who sing the anthem choose to pre-record. That eliminates these sorts of embarrassments. But alas she sung her rendition live. I’m sure she wishes she had a time machine.

Speaking of the anthem, Americans will bet on anything, and by anything I mean the over/under on how long it would take Aguilera to finish the national anthem. The two big gambling sites bodog.com and Bookmaker.com clocked the time differently (1:53.7 and 1:54.2 respectively), sending the online gambling world into a frenzy.

I may or may not be exaggerating.

HALFTIME

I thought the Black Eyed Peas did a good job but they put quantity over quality, opting for a effect-driven show rather than a talent-driven one. 500 dancers and I don’t even know how many songs were in their medley-7 maybe? They also bought out both Slash and Usher. I thought both were great, but Fergie’s singing wasn’t as good as it normally is and the songs jumped genres and had no real flow.

But luckily I like their party music, so I jigged a little and was satisfied for the most part. I think if you like BEP, generally speaking, the performance was good, if you don’t it was a tragic mistake.

Kind of hard to please anyone who’s seen Michael Jackson and Prince perform at halftime.

THE GAME

The first quarter simply wasn’t competitive. The Packers ran over the Steelers scoring two quick touch downs. The rest of the game was much better, but turnovers and dropped balls pervaded it making the energy a bit uneven.  Still a a good game overall (probably not in the top 10 of those I’ve seen in my lifetime though).

I remain kind of in disbelief that defensive titans Harrison, Polamalu, Farrior, and Clark made very little impact on the game.The Packers Defense played well-they looked confused for a bit after CB Charles Woodson left the game with a broken collar bone, but eventually pulled themselves back together and continued to apply pressure.

Ben Roethlisberger made some crucial errors and turnovers including 2 interceptions. The Packers converted Steelers’ turnovers into 21 points, and I think that really tells a lot of the story. Rodgers looked to be heading into his normal bad-second-half routine that he’s had throughout this year’s playoffs but it didn’t last very long. He really put together a good game.

RODGERS VS. FAVRE

I think it would be a nice gesture if Favre called Rodgers personally to congratulate him. Favre has been a hard act to follow in terms of winning the hearts and minds of fans. But as you can see from Rodgers’ play this year and Favre’s stints with the Jets and Vikings, the Packers made the right choice in sticking with Rodgers.

I’m sure Packers fans will have no problem coming to terms with this now that that they have another Lombardi trophy to show for it. Besides, after only 3 years they have a QB that gets to be in the ranks of the “chosen ones” that analysts shower with deference and positivity. A land where no black man shall ever live. Just one more thing to celebrate.

DEPRESSION

I do watch other sports; however football is the only sport that matters. The lockout that is looming is like a dark cloud over my life. Speaking of life, unfortunately, with football season over I have to get one.

I’m glad that the combine is coming up soon because that’s always a good time, well, to me anyway.

Even though the season is over I will still be busy on this blog. It’s in the process of being redesigned and I’m working on some special projects to introduce that will make next football season even more fun for me and hopefully for my readers as well.

When the NFL issued the list of the newest round of Hall of Fame Inductees-a list that includes former TE Shannon Sharpe and former CB Deion Sanders-the discussion immediately turned to former WR Cris Carter. People wanted to know why Chris was snubbed for the 4th time.

Carter was originally eligible for the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2008.

Someone tweeted Gregg Rosenthal of Pro Football talk to ask whether he was surprised that Carter didn’t make it into the HOF this year. He said no, “not with this class.” He also said Reed should go before Carter.

I’m not so sure that Reed should should go before Carter, but certainly that’s a matter open to debate. What’s not open to debate is that the “class” reason/excuse is going to continue to be frustrating-not just Carter but for any player who we know will make it into the HOF but appears to be being held out for some reason unknown to the public.

My response to Rosenthal’s contention is that every class of HOFers is going to be tough and it’s only going to get more so. I made this point on twitter without having specifics, but going off of the fact that the level of commitment, fitness, longevity of great players in the NFL has steadily risen with salaries and slow elimination of offseasons.

I’m glad that Sports Illustrated gave more specific information about upcoming classes of players.

…The 2011 class is damn strong, and future classes are going to be even more competitive.

Consider: The list of first-year eligible players in 2013 includes: O-guard Larry Allen, tackle Jonathan Ogden, defensive tackle Warren Sapp, defensive end Michael Strahan and kicker Morten Anderson.

The list in 2014 includes: Linebacker Derrick Brooks, receiver Marvin Harrison, running back Shaun Alexander, safety Rodney Harrison and coaches Tony Dungy, Mike Holmgren and John Gruden.