Following an exciting first round, we break down the favorite picks, most pleasant and biggest surprises, most under-appreciated pick, worst move and more.
Peyton Manning, Mario Williams, Mike Wallace and Carl Nicks headline an intriguing free agent class that can shift the balance of power this offseason.
The Eagles seemingly came out of nowhere to sign Nnamdi Asomugha as they eye a trip to the Super Bowl.
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$.01--Jim Tressel is out as football coach at Ohio State. Finally. Sneaking into Columbus during the holiday weekend, Tressel resigned just ahead of the NCAA lynch mob in some vain attempt to save a little face. At this point there is little face to save.
With all that is coming out, I know I speak for the vast majority of Buckeye fans when I say I feel betrayed by Jim Tressel. Here is a man who staunchly presents himself as a pillar of virtue and morality in the rowdy cesspool of college football. I checked my autographed copy of his book “Life Promises for Success: Promises from God on Achieving Your Best” and just laughed at the hypocrisy. Here is a man who writes a righteous book like this but lies, cheats, and deceives anyone and everyone in order to get the power to write such a book. I'm disgusted with myself that I bought into the Tressel mystique and didn't see the huge mistake.
Just as in the other major salacious industry in this country--politics--it's not the crimes that are the trouble, it's the cover ups. Had Tressel simply forwarded the incriminating email to the compliance office and his athletic director, Jim Tressel would still be the coach at Ohio State and be viewed as a sanctimonious do-gooder in a sea of shady characters. And that sheds light on a larger problem; Tressel was absolutely guilty and should have been fired months ago, but the buck clearly did not stop with him. To intimate that nobody else in the Ohio State athletic department--which earns a larger aggregate salary than all State of Ohio elected officials (Tressel's salary is almost 30 times what governor John Kasich earns)--is fallacious and naïve. It is time for the university to clean house, removing Athletic Director Gene Smith and perhaps even university President Gordon Gee.
The argument that “this kind of stuff goes on everywhere” might be true, but only USC has also been caught red-handed doing it. Much like USC, the Buckeyes need to get hit with a bowl ban, reduced scholarships, and very tight probation. Based on the actions of the current leadership above Tressel, if I were a Ohio State trustee I would not trust that the current regime can steer the ship through that probation minefield.
$.02--The root of the downfall is Terrelle Pryor, the most celebrated national recruit in the last five years. To put it bluntly, he was neither worth the hype nor the protracted and heavily publicized recruiting battle. You might remember that Pryor very publicly narrowed his choices to Oregon, Michigan, and Ohio State after rebuffing the locals at Penn State and just about every other top program in the nation. Ohio State was the oddball, a seeming stylistic misfit for his athletic ability and dynamic explosiveness, which were perfect fits for the other two finalists. That raised some eyebrows, but not enough that anyone read much into it.
I could pile on Pryor, but there is a larger dynamic at play here. Much like Reggie Bush, the man who brought down USC, Pryor was an athletic early bloomer that saw no problem in cashing in on what he could do for the college football program. Cam Newton's father did the same thing, allegedly (and I do believe this) without Cam's knowledge. College basketball is littered with prominent names of mega-recruits receiving all sorts of side benefits that include cars, cash, tattoos and jewelry. This is more than a Terrelle Pryor problem; it is a problem with a sense of entitlement that many of the top recruits possess. Many openly shop their services to the highest bidder, which is no secret at all. Look at most of the elite programs and chances are pretty good that a big reason why they stay elite is because they are better at clandestinely securing the demands of the top recruits.
I would make the argument that in the vast majority of cases, it isn't worth it for the schools or the coaches. Pryor has proved to be an enigmatic talent, superb at times but frustrating just as often. Go back to the 2007 recruiting class, where Marvin Austin and Greg Little were top-shelf recruits that wound up together at North Carolina. The Tar Heels didn't win a bowl game with them, and both wound up suspended for all of 2010 as part of a larger illegal benefit scandal. The top recruit that year was Joe McKnight, who underwhelmed as “the next Reggie Bush” at USC. I don't even recognize about 15 of the names in the supposed Top 50 recruits, but two that just missed the top 50 were the aforementioned Cam Newton and recently exiled former South Carolina QB Stephen Garcia. Miami, Texas, and Notre Dame were universally rated as pulling in top 10 recruiting classes both that year and the next year. Those classes got head coaches fired at Miami and Notre Dame and cost everyone but Mack Brown their jobs at Texas. The point? Beware of putting too much emphasis on the top-tier recruits, particularly the ones that physically matured early and come with hands out like Terrelle Pryor.
$.03--Where does Ohio State go from here? The interim coach remain Luke Fickell, who already held that title from when Tressel was merely suspended. Fickell is someone I know from high school, where he went to Columbus DeSales and I went to Northland; we shared a home football field, though he was two grades behind me. He was one of those players that even back in high school everyone talked of him as “someday he's gonna be a heck of a coach”, and he has quickly ascended through the college coaching ranks. Fickell was a strong candidate to succeed Tressel down the line, and now the school has a chance to simply accelerate that promotion and make it permanent. I hope for their sake he is given every chance to keep the job on a permanent basis. He recruited most of these players and has their unyielding respect.
To help Fickell, and to help wipe some of the excrement from the program's shoes, all of the suspended players should be permanently dismissed. Ohio State needs to accept whatever NCAA punishment comes right away and get it over with. The conventional thinking is that Tressel will get hit much harder than the school, but that is far from a given. They must swallow the bitter medicine and do their best to put this whole fiasco behind them. Mike Adams and Devier Posey in particular will be missed, but they weren't going to be available for what is likely the toughest conference game, Michigan State, anyways. Cleaning out the players might make keeping Fickell a tougher sell, as he is a lead recruiter and has been with Tressel from the beginning.
If the Buckeyes want to look outside the program, the laundry list of prime suspects includes Urban Meyer, Jon Gruden, and Bo Pellini, all of whom have Ohio and/or OSU ties. Meyer claims he isn't interested in coaching this year, and despite his prior credibility issues on this matter, I'll take him at his word. But I do believe he should be considered the leading outside candidate for 2012 and beyond. A couple of interesting names that have popped up on various blogs and radio shows: Jeff Fisher and Tony Dungy. I've always found both overrated as coaches, but if the school really wants to announce they are serious about cleaning up the program, Dungy would be an exceptional choice.
$.04--The NFL lockout rolls on with little progress and really nothing new to report. I still remain stubbornly optimistic that a deal will be struck before any regular season games are lost, but it sure appears that all offseason activities are going to get wiped out. Already the NFL has axed the rookie symposium, which was going to be more critical and important this year than perhaps any other with all the prominent players (AJ Green, every UNC player, Cam Newton) involved in NCAA infractions issues. I've questioned just how effective this symposium has been in the past, but by and large it is a noble effort that certainly reached some that needed it.
Right now both sides appear hellbent on riding the courts, which can only have disastrous implications for the side that loses. With the appeals process likely to last years, it behooves both sides to not risk imminent disaster and come to a resolution before it comes to that. Sadly, the leadership on both sides believes they are certain to win. I would strongly encourage De Smith and Roger Goodell to both take a quick look at their own sport and the inglorious history of supposed “can't lose” teams.
Meanwhile the players continue to work out, some on their own but many as a team. Here in Houston over half the Texans have been working out together at Rice University, and the sessions have been fairly intense and spirited. The same is true in Detroit and many other NFL cities, which provides a little hope that a skipped formal offseason won't lead to a vastly inferior product on the field once the games actually start. Hey, at this point anything that isn't a negative is newsworthy…
$.05--The NBA Finals begin Tuesday between the Heat and Mavericks. Thus far the NBA Playoffs have been very good, even though both Conference Finals lasted just five games. One of the fascinating facets for this lifelong Cavaliers fan has been witnessing the superb play of Lebron James leading the Heat to this point.
I have to admit, I'm proud of LeBron James. I'm actually happy for him that he has proven so many of his long-term detractors wrong. The Skip Baylesses and Charles Barkleys of the world have continually ragged on his defense and his ability in the clutch. I used to think it was as much an anti-Cleveland bias as it was anything directed at LeBron, but this year proved that was not necessarily the case.
In these playoffs LeBron has unquestionably been the best defensive presence, blanketing the alleged MVP (side tangent: has there ever been a more one-dimensional MVP than Derrick Rose?) and consistently shutting down whomever he was assigned to guard. As for performance in the clutch, LeBron salted away the Bulls late in a couple games almost by himself. ESPN produced the stat that LeBron has the highest “in the clutch” shooting percentage of any player in NBA playoff history, even better than Jordan or Kobe, the two most celebrated “closers” in league history. I fondly remember Lebron scoring the final 25 points all by himself way back when the Cavs stunned the defensively mighty Pistons to reach their only Finals. I remember Game 2 against the Magic in 2009 and the buzzer-beating off-balance three-pointer that kept that year's hopes alive. I wonder if the doubters will still be so vociferous when he wins Finals MVP and hoists the trophy over his head?
That might seem an odd and objectionable opinion to most Cavs fans and Clevelanders, but come on, it's time to move on. LeBron gave us a great ride, albeit sans the happy ending. It is time to move forward, or to quote my favorite Oasis song, “Don't look back in anger.” It seems Lebron has come to the realization that The Decision was a huge mistake, and I am willing to forgive him for it. I also very badly want my all-time favorite NBA player, Zydrunas Ilgauskas, to win a title. Z epitomized class and perseverance during his decade-plus with the Cavs, and I would love to see him rewarded with a coveted title. I think he's going to get it: Heat in 6.
