Sunday, April 29, 2007

POST DRAFT HANGOVER


as is the case, i can't believe how much of the NFL Draft i watched over the weekend. mostly i watched the first round online while i was busy not doing much of anything at work on Saturday, but i really can't come up with a rational excuse for watching any of the day 2 nonsense this morning. maybe it was to avoid another roadrules/realworld challenge on MTV or the fact that i enjoy seeing Mel Kiper pull some shit out of his ass about some random left guard from Hampton college or whereever in the 7th round. i mean does that guy really watch that much college football? didn't he also once say JJ Stokes would be the next Jerry Rice? anyways, the most enjoyable part of the draft was of course watching Brady Quinn's freefall of shame before the Browns traded away their likely top 10 pick in next years draft to save Quinn for the humiliation of being the first player i can ever recall getting invited to the draft and then going in the second round. honestly after Miami passed up on him it looked like he might cry. and so it goes, he's now in line to be the next Tim Couch. on the hometeam front the Falcons decided it would be a good idea to draft a bunch of guys i had either never heard of or who played for Arkansas. granted Jamaal Lewis may end up being a pro-bowl end...but i really would rather have gotten that 19 year old kid out of Louisville instead. also this years tally of Auburn players who got drafted was a low 5 being taken. Ben Grubbs was the only Auburn player taken in the 1st round by the Ravens, Kenny Irons went in the second to the Bengals (to backup another former Tiger Rudi Johnson), Will Herring and Courtney Taylor both got drafted in the 5th and 6th rounds by the Seahawks, and finally David Irons (with his oh so very impressive score of 4 on the Wonderlic) ends up a Falcon in the 6th round. all in all it's a good way to kill a weekend if you have a nice couch to take a nap on and nothing better to do. bonus points for getting my girlfriend to watch some of it and talk about how she felt so bad for poor Brady.

Thursday, April 26, 2007

DRAFTING YOUR TEAM'S FUTURE SALARY CAP DISASTER


So the NFL Draft is this weekend and if you are like me your team has a top 10 pick that is more than likely gonna be either a complete bust or a respectable player with no actual star potential who never really earns that huge signing bonus and eventually who'll end up playing for another team in 4 years and helping that team reach a Super Bowl while your team keeps missing the playoffs and getting more top 10 busts. Now usually the player most likely to bust is a QB...which makes sense as it is by far the hardest to transition from college to the NFL. the streets are littered with the likes of 1st round draft pick Quarterback busts. Tim Couch, Akili Smith, Rick Mirer, Dan McGwire, Cade McNown, Joey Harrington (oh wait...i forgot the Falcons gave him a fucking job), David Klingler, Andre Ware, Robo-QB Todd Marinovich, Heath Shuler, and poor old Ryan Leaf are all more punch lines than they are Quarterbacks. each of those players probably set back the franchises that drafted them anywhere from 3 to 5 seasons or in the Lions case for eternity as they drafted two of those dickheads. and so when i see JaMarcus Russell and Brady Quinn sitting up there on Mel Kipers' big board i keep having visions of Russell in a Frankfurt Galaxy uniform and Quinn as the 3rd string QB for the Toronto Argonauts not holding up Superbowl Trophies. call me a pessimist but the only sure things i see in this draft are Calvin Johnson and Adrian Peterson. why you'd even consider anyone else over either of them outside of say a good left tackle like Levi Brown or Joe Thomas is completely
insane.
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anyways here's my list of the top 10 likely first rounders in this year's class who are gonna be NFL busts.
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1. Tedd Ginn WR Ohio State-although Ginn has amazing speed and will probably end up being a pretty good kick returner for a number of years he's never shown in college that he's gonna be an elite wide reciever in the NFL and so is never going to earn the huge signing bonus he will command. best case scenario is he becomes the next Dante Hall. most likely scenario he'll be more like Micheal Lewis.
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2. Brady Quinn QB Notre Dame- now i know everyone is piling on Quinn and calling him soft and calling up the ghosts of Rick Mirer and it's become popular to predict he'll be a bust mostly cuz of where he went to school, bust come on...it's not just anti-Notre Dame hyperbole. did you see Quinn play against Ohio State, Michigan, USC, or LSU? when the guy plays against teams loaded with NFL like talent on defense he suddenly looks alot more like Rick Mirer than he does Joe Montana. i think Quinn's real fate will lay with how early he gets picked. if the Lions or Browns pick him up then it's not really a matter of "if" he willl be a bust but more of "when". the best case scenario for Quinn would be for him to fall somewhere to the middle or bottom of the first round or even just out of the top 10 like Leinart did last year and end up with a team that's already got some talent and a okay staring QB for him to learn from for a couple of years and then maybe just maybe he might end up the next Trent Green.
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3. Leon Hall CB Michigan- the player most likely to get drafted by the Falcons if Laron Landry is already gone and also most likely to make you shoot your television as he gets toasted by superior WRs in the NFL on every sunday. let's face it, there aren't any real good CBs in the draft this year...all the real talent is at safety, so if it's a CB your team needs maybe think about picking Reggie Nelson of Florida and trying to convert him over Leon Hall. did you see the guy trying to cover Tedd Ginn and Dwane Jarrett last year? what a fucking joke.
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4. Marshawn Lynch RB Cal- saw him play against Tennessee. saw him put up a whole lot of nothing. so he can run crazy over shitty Pac-10 defenses. so could probably 80% of the running backs in the nation. nobody plays defense on the west coast. just look what JJ Arrington did at Cal and look what he's done in the NFL. Lynch looks like the same kind of back me, he got shut down against a tough SEC defense = he'll get shutdown in the pros.
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5. Paul Posluszny LB Penn State- okay seriously, if this guy played for Michigan State or Indiana would would even know who he was? awesome, so you are a slowish white Linebacker who can tackle slowish running backs in the Big 10. congradulations here's your huge check. have fun sitting the bench behind this 5th round pick we got out of Middle Tennessee State two years ago who make 400 thousand a year and leads the team in tackles. can you make sure the Gatorrade buckets stay full? thanks.
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6. Dwayne Jarrett WR USC- i wanna believe this kid is gonna be good, but the facts are he's slow and he dominated smaller slower corners in college and he isn't gonna get away with that shit in the League. maybe he'll be a good redzone threat. most likely he'll be a huge dick and stay out at the club and end up getting cut after his third season.
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7. Robert Meachem WR Tennessee, Sydeny Rice WR South Carolina, Dwayne Bowe WR LSU- i'm an SEC fan and i know from years of experience that most great SEC recievers do fuck all in the pros. with the exception of Hines Ward i am having trouble even coming up with any real top level reciever talent. fuck it unless your name is Calvin Johnson then i don't want you anywhere near my team. all the wide recievers are gonna be busts. pick those guys in the 3rd or 4th round for the value.
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8. Adam Carricker DE Nebraska- slow white dude
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9. Alan Branch DT Michigan- my money is on him being a lazy asshole who shows up to camp over weight and ends spending more time on the IR than on the field. besides did you watch Michigan play against USC? i wouldn't draft anyone from that team.
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10. JaMarcus Russell QB LSU- enough of the stupid human tricks of being able to throw the ball 60 yards from his butt. how many times is that gonna be useful in a game? nobody just goes out there and throws the deep ball all day. can he hit a little out and out for 6 yards on a regular basis? is he gonna fumble the ball on the goaline as your about to go up by 6? probably. one good game against a highly overrated Notre Dame team does not equal the number one pick in the draft to me. be smart Oakland. the future of the NFL is sitting right there for you to take and his name is Calvin Johnson.

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

now that Captain America is dead it's time to talk about the Truth


in the growing age of controversey over athletes using performance enhancing drugs i think that it's time to stop the witch hunt and start looking at the source of this whole problem. it's time that we faced up to the fact that Captain America is the one to blame. i know that may not be a popular stance to take, especially in a time of war when many Americans feel the need to cling to symbols of freedom, honor, and the American Way...but facts are facts. Captain America is the original 'roider.


a brief history lesson for people who weren't nerds in middle school or are just unaware of popular culture: Captain America started off as a pretty normal guy. During World War II, a young Steve Rogers tried to enlist into the military, but was turned away due to his frail and sickly body. Steve Rogers was given another chance to serve his country though, as a General overheard his rejection and offered him a chance to fight the Nazis by being a part of a top-secret experiment. Steve agreed. He was given a super-solider serum and was blasted by radiation. After the process, Steves body was no longer sickly and frail but the pinnacle of human perfection. (in other words they gave the motherfucker steroids) Granted it was to fight the Nazis not crush 450 foot homers, but still he was running around kicking Nazi ass with some shrunken balls. and the US Government was totally complicit in the whole thing.


Flash forward to kids growing up in the 60s, 70's, and 80s with dreams of being heroes on the baseball diamond and so they start taking their own super serum. So yeah, basically Stan Lee and Marvel comics owe the fans of Major League baseball a big apology. Captain America needs to start running a disclaimer on the cover of every issue and a astrick should be attached to all back issues that are ever reprinted. and the media needs to get off the backs of all the guys who were just doing what America's greatest superhero has been doing for the past 65 years...except for Barry Bonds. fuck that guy.

Monday, April 23, 2007

Mission Statement


welcome fine readers to A Lifetime Of Defeats. The is the one stop shop for 28 years of pain and misery as lived by yours truly in the world of sports. i will over the course of this blogs lifetime try as best i can to capture the anguish and heartbreak associated with hitching my wagon to sports teams that never seem to be able to win a championship. as a fan of the Braves, Falcons, and Auburn Tigers i have experienced great joy and thrills in key victories only to have all of those victories be crushed and destroyed in my soul by far more gruesome defeats. whether it's The Falcons being blown out on an actual blue moon (signifying how unlikely it will be that they ever should reach a moment like that again) in the Super Bowl, or Mark Wholers giving up a homerun to a dickhead backup catcher in the World Series when the Braves were up 2 games to none and leading in the 3rd against the hated Yankees and then getting swept from there on out in every world series game since, to having my Auburn Tigers go undefeated not once but twice in the past 20 years and not even getting a sniff of a National Championship; i feel that i have become an expert on having your expectations crushed...and it has left me full of hate and doubt and rage and hopefully that in turn can be turned into something productive. and so begins my journey.