The Man in Blak

I thought earlier that there wasn't any unit worse in the NFL than the Rams defense. Of course, I forgot about the Rams' special teams. People wail on the Colts for being one-dimensional, but they look like a damn Escher painting compared to the St. Louis Rams.

You know, the Jets could probably trade Paul Hackett for Buddy Ryan on offense and come out ahead.

You can't tackle somebody on your heels, Steeler guy.

DOUG BRIEN

Being injured for almost half of the year doesn't help him out that much. Did it ever occur to you that Reggie Wayne gets easy looks because Harrison almost demands double coverage from the secondary on every route? My Top 5 QB 1. Peyton Manning - Best pure quarterback in the game. 2. Daunte Culpepper - Should be getting the hype that Vick gets. 3. Tom Brady - If Brady is a system quarterback, then why couldn't Bledsoe get the job done? 4. Donovan McNabb - Great numbers, but still has some progress to make as a QB. 5. Brett Favre - He'd be No. 3 if he kept from throwing some of the most stupid interceptions in the history of quarterbacking.

It really all depends on how you value rushing yards for a quarterback. Is Vick getting a bunch of rushing yards because he's scrambling outside of a pocket, turning broken plays into positive gains...or is he getting a bunch of rushing yards because he refuses (or is entirely unable) to read the defense effectively? For Vick, I suspect the reality lies more towards the latter, but that doesn't necessarily make him a poor quarterback. Sure, checking down is undeniably a crucial part of quarterbacking, but the position is all about risk management: trying to milk eight yards out of a check down is a little riskier (incompletion, or interception) than just taking the ball and running for five or six when you have the athletic ability that Vick has. In either case, Vick still has plenty of room to improve. He's barely a top 20 quarterback, which still makes him egregiously overrated when you weigh in the ludicrous amount of praise that is directed his way. The writer who gave him an MVP vote should be fired for incompetence. Well, the 3 rushing TDs isn't necessarily a reliable total, considering that the Falcons are always going to turn to their running back, not their quarterback, in a goal line situation. Vick already puts himself at enough risk for injury; there's no need to pile it on through goal line carries. The 266 yards that he lost due to sack, however, are a very telling sign. Those are situations where he could have thrown the ball away (remember, risk management). And the number of fumbles, if it's correct, is absolutely inexcusable - any tailback with that bad of fumble-itis would have been benched without a second thought.

That's the theory. Another good example of this is Jim Edmonds, who has a career 106 rate at CF, meaning that he's been barely above average, despite showing up on Web Gems every night. Of course, the search for a reliably predictive (or even a correlatively) defensive stat is still one of the holy grails of baseball analysis. Christian Guzman led all shortstops in defensive win shares, but was barely above average in UZR. Meanwhile, BPro's Rate stat shows him being a below average defender his whole career before making a 14 point leap to a score of 111. Of course, Tangotiger's fan-based scouting report has Guzman posted as a guy with a lot of speed, but not a lot of range or instincts, but it seems more of the extreme votes canceling each other out, as the agreement level for Guzman was a less-than-inspiring 0.48.

Oddly enough, I heard a couple of rumblings along those same lines today, except that it was Torii Hunter that was the player in question. I'd take Beltran over either of them, though.

I'd take Helen Keller and Marcel Marceau over the ESPN Sunday Night crew. Oh, and Buck has just been trained by FCC sensitive producers to jump all over that kind of an incident. It would have been the same with Al Michaels or any other broadcaster, in my opinion.

I think Wilbon's position on the trade was that it's such an unbelievably dumb move for the Magic that almost any criticism of it - even Francis' infantile whining - is defensible by default.

I only read the sports stuff (Dr. Tom, alkeiper). Other than that, the only wrestling column I ever looked at was teke's shoot interview recaps. That, and one or two of Kotz's "Spoonful of Raw" columns.

Neil O'Donnell was a Pro Bowler in 1992, actually. He wasn't half bad at all.

The 2002 San Francisco Giants, specifically Kenny Lofton, Barry Bonds, and Dusty Baker. Amazingly, Lofton's on the top of my list, after blowing a gasket Stephen Jackson-style when he got hit by a wayward pitch in Game 1 of the series. The 2003 Chicago Cubs, for having two out of the three assholes listed above and for turning their own media and fanbase into an annoying bastard-child of the Red Sox Nation. The Philadelphia Eagles, primarily for their fans' reaction to Michael Irvin's career-ending injury. I was smiling like the Cheshire Cat when karma swung around and snatched Terrell Owens from them for the playoffs this year. The Los Angeles Lakers for Kobe Bryant. I don't think I need to go any further. The New York Yankees, specifically the Mussina era. Three straight World Series titles made up for a lot of hype, but I only became really annoyed when they started deliberately exploiting the lack of a salary cap. The only thing that holds the Yankees back from dominating the league is that they are probably the worst team in the league at scouting talent. The Denver Broncos, for Mike Shanahan, cut blocking, and Mike Shanahan. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers' super bowl team, just for the nauseating amount of hype that they got, even though Dungy built them from the ground up. Warren Sapp's clipping of Chad Clifton is still one of the dirtiest plays that I've had the "pleasure" of watching live.

There's always Daft Punk.

Crazy's very similar to Tajiri in the fact that he's certainly capable of getting over with the North American audience - it's just a matter of whether the WWE will really let him work his schtick or not.

St. Louis Cardinals - Comes from my dad being a huge Cardinals fan all as I was growing up, even when I'd cheer for the Royals or wear a Dale Murphy jersey to Cardinals games. It doesn't hurt that they're the local baseball team and that I've lived /went to college in St. Louis for the last five years. Carolina Panthers - John Fox is a phenomenal coach and I dig the young and underrated defense. Detroit Lions - Not so much anymore, but I was a huge fan when Barry Sanders played for them. To this day, the only football jerseys I own are two Barry Sanders jerseys. Just a class act. And that's really about it. I actively despise more teams than I like.

Given that the Dodgers just got a portion of Shawn Green's salary off of the books, I can imagine them making a run at Delgado. The Mets will somehow be in there too, as I can't imagine them moving forward with Cliff Floyd at 1B and Victor Diaz in LF.

Getting benched for Doug Flutie, maybe?

If you've got a commute, just practice some scales on your way to work. They're not the most glorious thing in the world to sing, but they do make you focus a lot on pitch control, which is important in the beginning. Do one key in major, then in minor, then shift up one half-step and do the same again. Just like on any instrument, you'll start to get some speed and some strength (in this case, lung strength) as time goes, if you practice fairly consistently.

Personally, I think Brett Favre's illegal forward pass was more of a disgrace than the mooning.

Actually, Wright could probably move to first, given that he has the range of a couch over at third.

King Crimson - "21st Century Schizoid Man" Nirvana - "Serve The Servants" Beatles - "Taxman" Tortoise - "TNT" Fiona Apple - "On The Bound" Radiohead - "Airbag" Radiohead - "Everything In Its Right Place" Tool - "Stinkfist" Sufjan Stevens - "Flint (For the Unemployed and Underpaid)" Chris Isaak - "Baby Did A Bad Bad Thing" And I'll second a couple that have already been mentioned: My Bloody Valentine - "Only Shallow" Rolling Stones - "Gimme Shelter" Portishead - "Mysterons" Guns 'n Roses - "Welcome to the Jungle" Wilco - "I Am Trying To Break Your Heart" Beatles - "A Hard Day's Night" XTC - "Respectable Street"

I'm a huge Stone Temple Pilots fan, but Tiny Music From the Vatican Gift Shop was a TERRIBLE album. Probably one of the worst albums from a "big name" rock band in the last ten years. Outside of "Trippin' On A Hole in a Paper Heart", every song on that album is either a complete rip-off ("Big Bang Baby", meet "Jumping Jack Flash") or a sad distillation of their older music ("Lady Picture Show"). I'm not even touching Shangri-La Dee Da. Core is pretty good and there are a couple of nice tracks on No. 4, but the real quality is on Purple, incidentally. "Lounge Fly", "Vasoline", "Interstate Love Song"...even "Pretty Penny" steals some good Beatles stuff.

Steelers, Colts, Vikings, Rams

Given the "talent" that Sherman has surrounded Favre with, I think almost any replacement could come in and do a better job as the General Manager. As a coach, Sherman's just trying to make the best of a bad situation, though he seriously needs to reign in Brett Favre, who just seems to be chucking the ball up more and more every year. Take a look at these two stat lines this year: 30 TDs, 17 INTs, 4088 yards 27 TDs, 20 INTs, 4089 yards The top one is Brett Favre. The bottom one is Jake Plummer. There's not that great of a difference, especially when you consider that the Packers were inexplicably pass-happy this year (598 pass attempts to 441 carries).