| Authored by Jeff Risdon - 19th July, 2009 - 9:52 pm
 It's beyond unseasonably cool here in Michigan, it's freaking cold! That chill will soon be broken by the onset of training camp and the Hall of Fame inductions just three weeks away.
$.01 -- This week marked the deadline for teams to agree to terms with players designated with the "franchise player" tags. One prominent player that refused to even negotiate is Texans cornerback Dunta Robinson, and it's not pretty in Houston. Robinson threatened that he would not sign the tender offer and will sit out not just training camp, but actual regular season games.
The team called his bluff and tagged him anyways, which is not a good sign of things to come for a Texans team many believe is ready to challenge for a playoff spot. Robinson is the best player in the worst secondary in the league. No, that's not subjective hating either; no team has allowed a higher opposing quarterback rating than the Texans over the last four seasons, and they've ranked no higher than 28th in that category in their existence. Still recovering from a major knee injury that clearly impacted his performance, Robinson should bounce back to being an adequate #1 cornerback this season. But the cost is high for Houston, and not just in cash terms. Nothing kills positive momentum like having a malcontented "star," and the Texans created just that by tagging Robinson when it was unlikely he was going to get more cash elsewhere with his knee situation.
$.02 -- Another franchise player that failed to agree to a long-term deal is Julius Peppers in Carolina. In two of the past three seasons, Peppers has been an elite pass rusher for Carolina. He asked to be traded instead of getting the tag, desiring to raise his profile by moving to a 3-4 defensive front from Carolina's 4-3. I side with the Panthers on this one. The team has handled the painfully shy Peppers with kid gloves, not pushing him into the limelight and publicly defending him when he's slumped. The numbers I heard being discussed from a team source were more than fair to Peppers, but he is apparently hellbent on leaving North Carolina, his lifelong home. I understand the wanderlust, but sometimes staying home isn't so bad. I'm afraid that Julius Peppers will find that out the hard way in 2010.
$.03 -- I get asked NFL draft questions all the time, and already this summer I've received several asking about my opinions on the top quarterbacks for next year's draft. My long-sentence opinion on the top signal callers, in some early order of preference:
Sam Bradford, Oklahoma -- He's very accurate all over the field and stronger than he looks, but I worry about his delivery and how well he can handle pressure against tougher/faster defenses.
Tim Tebow, Florida -- He will need some time to adjust from Urban Meyer's offense and his mechanics need lots of polish, but there has never been a better, more determined, more positive athlete to ever enter the draft at quarterback.
Jevan Snead, Ole Miss -- The best of the prototypical pro-style quarterbacks who throws a very catchable ball, and if he progresses in 2009 as much as he did in 2008 he should be the #1 overall pick.
Colt McCoy, Texas -- Longhorn skill position players have consistently disappointed, but McCoy's moxie and arm strength should help him transition.
Dan LeFevour, Central Michigan -- The French Canadian Vince Young, minus the apparent apathy towards self-improvement, but he's going to need solid coaching and a better sense of timing.
$.04 -- The college football Hall of Fame had their induction ceremonies this weekend in South Bend (where else?). It's so completely different than the Pro Football Hall of Fame, with the college spirit of inclusion versus the protectionist elitism of the professional selection process. The classes are huge and include pretty much anyone who ever wins any sort of award, whereas in Canton there are hugely deserving players who don't even make the final ballot. There has to be a happy medium somewhere between the two, and I hope the Pro Football HOF electors and directors come to that. Limiting the class size to five and not differentiating between players, coaches, owners, and innovators is too strict. The collegians have gone the other direction -- does anyone really believe John Cooper (sorry coach!) or Paul McPherson really belong as "legends," equal to Knute Rockne or Roger Staubach?
My advice to Peter King and the other Pro voters: allow five players, one coach, one owner/innovator, and two veterans committee inductees every year. My advice to the collegians: no coach that doesn't win multiple national titles should even be considered, no more than 10 D-I players in any year, and even though you're in South Bend you don't have to induct someone from Notre Dame every year.
$.05 -- Time for the non-football portion, because I try to be a well-rounded sports fan and encourage you to do the same. Former NBA player Antoine Walker (who would be in the college football hall of fame for his UK career) recently got busted at a blackjack table in Reno on a warrant for passing bad checks to Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas. This strikes a personal chord with me. My wife and I celebrated our 10-year anniversary at Caesar's in Vegas a couple years ago, and we ran into Walker and his personal shoe valet in the lobby.
Yes, he employed a man to carry his shoes. I later found out he was autographing those shoes and selling them to get money to gamble with. What's the point? Athletes are real people with real problems too, and often their relative wealth enables them to exacerbate those problems far beyond what the common citizen ever could. Get some help, Mr. Walker. And if you happen upon a pro athlete of celebrity in a casino and they're trying to sell you their shoes, don't enable them.
$.06 -- Rockets center Yao Ming is going to miss the upcoming NBA season while recovering from foot surgery to repair a non-displaced broken bone. This is the same injury that cost my all-time favorite NBA player, Zydrunas Ilgauskas, three seasons in his supposed athletic prime, and also robbed Bill Walton of even more. I can't help but wonder if the lack of milk in their young diets had anything to do with it. Maybe that's just idle speculation from someone who grew up on a dairy farm, but Chris Mortensen makes stuff up all the time and somehow still pulls a considerable paycheck. I wish Yao well, because he's been a real pleasure to watch. I have a deep admiration for big men who have ball skills and soft touches, and Yao has developed both at a very high level.
$.07 -- My son Layne turned four this weekend, and this is a shameless opportunity to amuse him by seeing his name on the computer. He recently made my summer with one small, unprompted question, "Daddy, can we go throw the football back and forth?" Once I stopped crying tears of joy we grabbed the ball, and he impressed me even more with his great arm strength and catching acumen. I know Lane Kiffin at Tennessee likes to recruit 'em young, so here's my recruiting pitch for his ersatz namesake: on his fourth birthday my son is 48" tall, weighs 48 pounds, and can throw a spiral into a trash can from 10 yards away. I'll wait for your letter, coach...
$.08 -- The Raiders cut sixth round pick Stryker Sulak this week, before training camp even started. Sulak was a questionable prospect at defensive end -- he sorely lacks size and never played the run at Mizzou -- but if you think enough of the kid to spend a pick on him, you should at least let him show you what he can do in pads. If it were pretty much any other team, I'd give them the benefit of the doubt and say the player probably stood out as being completely unworthy of sticking around. But this being the Al Davis Raiders, I cast a sympathetic eye to Sulak and hope some other team gives him a shot as a pass rushing specialist.
$.09 -- Mandatory Brett Favre mention, because if I ever hope to get any content on ESPN I feel obligated to contribute to the ad nauseum Favre coverage: This week I saw a feature on some young entrepreneurs who created some Favre-as-traitor t-shirts, and they can't print the shirts fast enough to keep up with demand. At what point does someone close to Favre slap him in his head and scream, "Enough already!"? Take a lesson from your friend Steve McNair: don't make our last memories of you on the field awful. Honor your late friend and hang 'em up!
$.10 -- My first two season previews are posted for your amusement/derision. You might ask, "Why would you do the Lions and Bills first?" Good question. The easy answer: they are written in general order of how confident I am about the forecast for the team. I know the Lions are a 3-6 win team and I know the Bills are a 2-5 win team (yes, I do believe the Lions are the better team, based on schedules). So for you Titans, Falcons, Ravens and Cardinals fans, be patient; I haven't compiled a solid opinion on the fate of your teams yet. You can expect previews for the Browns, Panthers, Steelers, and Patriots in the next week.
-Season Preview: Detroit Lions
-Season Preview: Buffalo Bills
--Jeff.Risdon@RealGM.com |
