Kellen Moore, Drew Brees, Tyler Bray, and the NFL draft
One of the fascinating developments in Tennessee Vols football has been the emergence of Tyler Bray, soon-to-be junior quarterback. As a freshman, he took the starting job away from Matt Simms for the November stretch and the bowl game. As a sophomore, he was the selected starter for the entire season. Only an injured thumb prevented him from his first full season as the number one. Could his only full season be his last?
The tagline that has been commonly applied to Bray is “a surefire first round pick, perhaps top 5.” Or, at least something similar. To make this sentiment even more dramatic, many feel that this will apply to him immediately after his junior year. Right. Bray is good enough to leave early for the pros and good enough to be one of the most coveted picks in the 2013 draft.
Super Bowl nerd store
Did you know that in the St. Louis Rams’ victory over the Tennessee Titans in the 2000 Super Bowl, the Rams had a -2 turnover ratio?
Did you know that in the 1971 Super Bowl, the Baltimore Colts lost 4 of their 5 fumbles but still defeated Dallas?
Do you even care?
Well, if you are a football nerd like a lot of us, you can find such tasty morsels at the Super Bowl Head-to-Head site run by Thomson.co.uk (of all places).
Kudos to Football Outsiders for pointing me in the site’s direction.
Headhunting
I’ve written my share about concussions on this site. I have what I don’t consider radical rule changes in mind to deal with this subject of debilitating injury to football players of all levels and ages. But a story by Benjamin Wallace-Wells from New York Magazine has me thinking of radically revising those contemplated rule changes.
Wallace-Wells writes that the Giants may have targeted the 49ers’ punt returner Kyle Williams because of his history of having been concussed several times in the past. Williams was labeled the goat in the 49ers loss because of his gaffe of a punt in the fourth quarter and his fumble while returning a punt in the overtime.
Bob Woodruff, Joe Paterno, and the lights at Neyland
Former Tennessee Athletic Director Bob Woodruff was a crafty old dude. I had the privilege to interview him in his office during my undergraduate years at UT as part of a journalism project. I was researching the plans (that were never fulfilled) to retrofit the south end of Neyland Stadium so that the Vols basketball team could play a few selected home games there. This was the mid-1970s when Bernard King, Ernie Grunfeld and Co. were lighting up men’s hoops like a bonfire. The old Stokely Athletic Center was not big enough to hold the excitement of those days. All-night lines for student tickets were becoming commonplace, especially for the big games like Kentucky (that 103-98 war remains the best basketball game at any level I’ve ever witnessed in person).
Special teams gaffs lay waste to a Niner night by the Bay
Giants 20 49ers 17 (OT) | NFC Championship
In the modern game of football, you can still make a good living with a suffocating defense. But there has to be a semblance of an offense when it is needed. Such as on third downs to keep drives alive. The New York Giants were 7-for-21 in third-down situations. The San Francisco 49ers were 1-for-13, allowing the Giants to have more of their share of possession.
And when you can’t make first downs, these things tend to happen:
A sickening end to a sensational game
Patriots 23 Ravens 20 | AFC Championship Game
I felt an incredible sense of loss at the end of the game. And I’m not a Ravens fan or a Patriots hater. It was the feeling that the Baltimore players that had given everything had been let down by one of the quirks of football. In fact, I felt as if all neutral football fans had been let down.
Former Pro Bowl place kicker Billy Cundiff badly hooked the 32-yard field goal attempt at the dead-end of the game allowing New England to escape the task of an overtime to advance to their seventh Super Bowl in a quarter century.
Patriots vs Ravens preview
Joe Flacco. The name alone conjures up images of the waterfront. So when a football observer rightly says that Flacco has the strongest arm in the league, the double entendre is irresistible. The Baltimore Ravens’ quarterback just can’t be taken seriously by fans in bulk, especially now that he is facing Lord Brady. Even when Flacco wins, such as when the Ravens thrashed the Patriots 33-14 in the 2009 playoffs, he gets no respect. Perhaps he hasn’t earned it — Flacco completed only four passes on that day.
Nobody wants to be under a bus
Chris Brown over at Smart Football has posted a letter written by recently-fired Texas A&M head football coach Mike Sherman. The letter is addressed to all high school coaches in Texas. It outlines a philosophy and methodology for relating to players, which, if embraced and followed, will allow a coach to be a true leader. It could apply to a lot of settings, even for office management, or even a family.
Giants v 49ers preview
Predicting the outcome of football games, especially playoff games, is an exercise in pretending to know the inevitable. Ratings, tendencies, history. They are all considered. And then the hunch weighs in. Proceed.
Where have all the Bobs gone?
There used to be some great football players named Bob. There was Bob Griese, former great quarterback at Purdue and for the Miami Dolphins. There was “Bullet” Bob Hayes, the Olympic sprinter who later starred as a wide receiver for the Dallas Cowboys. And our own Bob Johnson, a center that was so good at the University of Tennessee, and later for the Cincinnati Bengals, that he is enshrined in both the hall of fames for college football and pro football.
Early 2012 college football polls — setting Southern Cal up for a big fall?
Matt Hinton (aka Dr. Saturday) wrote an article on the outlook of the LSU Tigers for 2012. He remarked not only how much talent the Tigers will be losing to the NFL but also how young this 2011 team really was. Young enough to be named the Number One ranked team in the majority of early 2012 polls.
In his assessment of the polls recently published by Rivals, Sports Illustrated, The Sporting News, ESPN, USA Today, Athlon, CBS, SBN, The Mercury-News, and The Orlando Sentinel, Hinton averaged all of the rankings to come up with an early 2012 consensus poll. Here they are.
How would Peyton Manning look in a Redskins uniform?
In 1998, first round draft pick Peyton Manning became the new quarterback of the Indianapolis Colts. Team owner Jim Irsay opened that door for the former Vol great by first firing the general manager Bill Tobin, then coach Lindy Infante, and finally quarterback Jim Harbaugh. Fastforward to the present, 14 years later.
This month, Irsay started the deja vu train by firing vice-chairman Bill Polian and his son, Chris Polian, the general manager. Yesterday, head coach Jim Caldwell was fired. Big questions are obvious. Will Stanford quarterback Andrew Luck be the first pick in the NFL draft, currently held (unless part of a trade) by Indianapolis? And what of Peyton Manning, 36 years old, having recently had his third neck surgery since March 2010?
Let’s rid ourselves of the NFL’s policy on TV blackouts
Televising NFL games is a lucrative business. One of the policies of this business is for blackouts — the NFL imposes this very strict policy to ensure that stadiums are filled and sold out, to maximize telecast ratings, and to help leverage content on the networks. The league has imposed this policy since 1973. But if one organization representing fans of all sports has its way, that policy could be changed, or banned completely.
Will having full-time NFL officials make any difference?
NFL officials are again in the cross-hairs of fans, media, and pretty much anybody else that watch football. On Sunday, Packers’ wide receiver Greg Jennings fumbled the football, at least according to most interpretations of the slow-motion replay (including mine). It wasn’t called a fumble on the field, and after video review, it still wasn’t called a fumble. Green Bay went on to score a touchdown. Fortunately for the New York Giants, the play had no effect on the game’s outcome — the G-Men stomped the Pack, ending Green Bay’s stellar season.
