Tuesday, August 28, 2007

KingWatch: Enough with the quotes!

Vick is a sick dick.It was just last month that I decided to lay off Peter King, Sports Illustrated's most self-referential (and Favre-reverential) football columnist. Earlier in the summer, I had begun writing a weekly critique of King's Monday Morning Quarterback columns. It was fun for a while, but eventually I became overwhelmed. Cataloguing all of King's lazy hyperboles, transparent straw men, moronic navel-gazing, and house-of-cards logic was exhausting. I'd just get finished with one week's column when the next would get posted. So I gave up.

Then that fucker started pushing buttons. A couple weeks back, he had seven "Quotes of the Week." That was bad enough, but I just rubbed my temples and told myself it would go away. But no. This week, he's up to eight Quotes of the Week. There's no telling where he'll go next. (Nine, I suppose.) And it makes me realize that someone needs to hold his ass accountable. So we're going to try this a little differently. Rather than try to recount every dumb thing King says or does, we'll just hit the highlights. We'll call it "The 5 Dumbest Things King Said This Week." Read this week's column here.

1. Because I just can't let it lie, I'm going to start with those eight goddam Quotes of the Week. King's column is written by formula. It's filled with "categories" ("Stat of the Week," "Factoid of the Week That May Interest Only Me," "Aggravating/Enjoyable Travel Note," etc), into which he can drop whatever items he happens to have left over in his notebook. It's done this way because it's very, very easy. He doesn't have to bother explaining why he's prattling on about, say, the lobster bisque at some hotel restaurant in Charlotte because he can just point to the category and say, "See? I have to write about this! It's part of my travel experience!" Never mind that he's the one who dreamed up the formula, and that because he travels all the time, half his damned life is made up of "travel" experiences, few of which any of us can relate to. (Unlike King, we don't have any expectations that air travel will be pleasant.) Or rather than take the time to figure out why the 49ers have been outscored 66-13 in the second quarter this season (I made that up) -- and to figure out whether that means anything going forward -- King just dumps it into the "Stat of the Week" hole and lets us try to figure it out.

When King does this, he's abdicating his role as the "expert" in his relationship with readers. We go to SI.com to read MMQB because, presumably, we don't know as much as King does. We don't have his connections or insight. But any one of us, given 10 minutes and a bunch of box scores, can find out how the 49ers perform in the second quarter. We want King to tell us more than we can find out on our own. Similarly, we also count on him to use his expertise to separate the wheat from the chaff. One of the most annoying things King does during the regular season is create categories for offensive, defensive and special-teams players of the week, and then pick three or four players to share each of these "awards." Doesn't he realize that we can read the box scores in the newspaper, too? We don't need King to tell us that Drew Brees went 29-of-36 for 357 yards and 3 TDs, and that Shaun Alexander ran for 145 yards and a pair of scores, and that Antonio Gates had nine catches for 132 yards. What we need him for is to tell us which of those three guys had the best game, and why. That's called expertise.

When King gives us eight quotes of the week, six of which are about Michael Vick, he's doing it because it's easy to just throw them all out there and let us sort it out. That way he doesn't have to build a coherent narrative. And, especially, he doesn't have to do the kind of heavy thinking that would be required to identify the one truly compelling quote that sums up the whole affair.

2. When former Giants running back Tiki Barber and current Giants quarterback Eli Manning got into a little spat recently, King sided with Barber, his new colleague on NBC. Big surprise. (Barber said on national TV that, based on his own experiences, Manning wasn't a leader in the Giants locker room. Manning responded that Barber is a funny guy to talk about leadership, having announced in the middle of last season that he was quitting and going into show biz, and then running his mouth about how bad the Giants coaches were.) Here's what King says about the dust-up: "The day Barber walked out of the Giants' locker room forever, he ceased to be a New York Giants' employee and became an NBC employee. He now owes his 110 percent to telling the truth as he sees it for NBC, not to anyone else."

First of all, let's talk about Barber. A week ago on the Sunday night pregame show, there was a discussion about whether Michael Vick would roll over on other players who get off on dogfighting. Barber said there's no way Vick would do that, because that would be stabbing other players in the back, a violation of the players' code. Barber also made it clear that he still believes in that code. Then he stabbed Manning in the back, on the air. That's hypocrisy.

Back to King. For some reason, I'm reminded of the movie Wall Street, in which Bud Fox first gets the attention of Gordon Gekko by passing along insider information about Bluestar Airlines, where his dad is the head of the mechanics' union. Gekko calls Fox back and says, essentially, thanks for the information, but it doesn't show me anything about your abilities except that you're willing to take advantage of your father. That's similar to what Barber did. King calls it "telling the truth as he sees it," but I see it as playing kiss-and-tell. Barber's comments about Manning don't establish him as a noteworthy commentator at all, because he is basing his credibility not on his years in the league and his special insight on the game of football, but rather on the fact that he used to be a New York Giant. Next week, when the topic is Vince Young, why am I supposed to care what Tiki Barber says? He wasn't a member of the Tennessee Titans, after all.

It's all very meta, but what I'm saying is: Barber made a huge mistake by using his new position to settle an old score. King should know that.

3. In "Coffeenerdness," King complains about the music at Starbucks: "They've got all the music satellited into their stores, and someone in Seattle must have forgotten to change the CD, because I hear the same old Motown tunes every single morning I walk in there. What's going on up there? You guys got that music on some tape loop? Could someone up there change it please?"

Pete, why the fuck do you care? How much goddam time are you spending in there? So you hear Ain't Too Proud to Beg, or whatever, every morning when you stop in for three minutes. So what? Get your overpriced coffee and hit the bricks. Or ... maybe you could stop for a second and consider this: Perhaps Starbucks doesn't want you to linger. Perhaps they know that hearing the same songs every morning gets on your nerves.

Starbucks probably wants its customers to come in, order a drink, maybe sit down and enjoy it for a little while. Here's what they probably don't want customers to do: Come in, order a small coffee, plug their laptop into the wall and leech off the electricity and WiFi all fucking day. Half the Starbuckses I've ever been in were so full of these cheapskates that there wasn't any place to sit. Playing music makes your establishment an attractive place for customers to drop in. But playing the same music over and over and over makes your establishment an unattractive place to linger for too long.

4. King says that the league should follow the advice of new Cowboys coach Wade Phillips and manufacture a bunch of regional rivalry games -- Giants-Jets, Raiders-49ers, etc. -- that would be played every year. And why do you suppose that Phillips is so keen on the idea? Because the Cowboys would get to play the Texans. It's a fantastic idea when your designated rival is a doormat, but not so much when you've got a built-in game against the Patriots every year while your division rival gets the Browns. You'd think King, who has the seed of half the Boston Red Sox running down his chin, would remember the excellent point Chipper Jones made this year about baseball's designated regional rivalries for interleague play. Jones' Braves have the Red Sox as their designated rival. The Florida Marlins, meanwhile, get the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. You call that fair?

King calls it "absurd" that the Raiders and Niners, for example, play only once every four years. I don't think it's absurd. I think it's fair. What I think is absurd is King's belief that the Raiders and Niners have much of a regional rivalry anyway. The Raiders' top rival is the Kansas City Chiefs. Always has been, always will be. The Cowboys' chief rival is the Redskins. Football is a national sport, remember? The biggest rivalry in the game right now is Colts-Patriots, which has no basis in geography. Finally, the schedule is already packed with regional rivalry games. They're called division games: Bears-Packers, Browns-Bengals, Giants-Eagles, etc. I know it's hard for King to understand, what with the way he bends over and spreads his cheeks for the boys of summer, but baseball is destroying itself with cockamamie gimmicks like these. Football need not follow suit.

5. The No. 1 thing that King "thinks he thinks" is this: "I think if the 90s had O.J. as a sports star falling from grace, this decade has Vick." What the hell does that even mean? Is he really trying to tell us that he's like the only person to think of O.J. Simpson during the whole Vick scandal? Really? And this is something he "thinks"? I'm pretty sure it's not a matter of opinion: O.J. fells from grace in the '90s, and Vick did so this year. Thanks for dropping that wisdom on us. Next week: "I think if the 90s had Steve Young playing QB for San Francisco, this decade has Alex Smith."

Besides, everyone knows that the truly appropriate comparison here is not with Simpson, who by 1994 had been out of the game for 15 years and was considered more an actor and a personality than a "sports star." The apt comparison is obviously with Mike Tyson, right down to the protesters. Though Tyson had lost his title by the time he went to prison for rape, he was the top-ranked contender. After he did his time, he still had some fight left in him, but not much. Get a clue, PK.

Sunday, August 26, 2007

Down and Distance mailbag: Joe T

A friend who lives near D.C. writes to tell me that even though Joe Theismann was kicked off the Monday Night Football team with such vehemence that he still has shoe polish in his colon, Theismann continues to torment sports fans in the National Capital Area by way of his gig as a color commentator on the Washington Redskins' preseason broadcasts. This friend asks an excellent question:
"Judging from Internet clamor (which never lies), Theismann's pretty well-reviled, but he's still ensconced in that announcers booth. And judging from the catty remarks of his partner, he's getting paid dumptrucks of money. Who do you think is keeping him around and why? Do the networks feel bad over his turkey drumstick leg? Is it a Snyder thing since he's a former Redskin?"

--J.B. in North Arlington

He's right about the Internet clamor. One of the realities of the Internet is that you can find "haters" out there for just about anyone. But you can also find ardent fans of just about anyone (not just Dean Cain) -- and find them in large numbers. I've read people say some really horrible things about the announcing abilities of Joe Buck and John Madden, but I've also read glowing tributes to those same gentlemen. I've seen wrongheaded yet still spirited defenses of Brian Baldinger, Tony Siragusa, Terry Bradshaw, Howie Long, even Bill Maas. However, with all the venom I've seen spit toward Joe Theismann, I haven't seen anyone, anywhere, offer a lucid defense of his abilities as an announcer. With the exception of this guy, no one likes him. Everyone thinks he's a blow-dried ass.

So why is he still on TV? Before we get to that, let's address this question: Why is he not on TV more? J.B. pointed out that Theismann's broadcast partner, Mike Patrick, was snarking at him about how much money he makes. Patrick and Theismann used to work ESPN's Sunday night NFL games in a three-man booth with Paul Maguire. When the Monday night package moved from ABC to ESPN, Patrick and Maguire were demoted to college football, and Theismann was teamed up with Mike Tirico and Tony Kornheiser on MNF. After one atrocious, embarrassing, disheartening season there, ESPN gave Theismann the heave-ho and replaced him with Ron Jaworski. Theismann, however, remains under contract to ESPN. I can't find a dollar figure for the contract, but considering that he starred on the network's marquee property, it must be sizeable. So Patrick was referring to Theismann being paid a lot of money by ESPN to appear as an infrequent guest on the Mike and Mike in the Morning radio show and to give his usual infuriating, wrong answers during draft coverage.

The question of why ESPN kicked Theismann off MNF is a good one, and I think it has a lot to do with the aforementioned Internet clamor. Theisman had been doing the Sunday night NFL games on ESPN since 1988. That's almost the Stone Age as far as sports media is concerned. It was before sports radio exploded, before ESPN2, Fox Sports Net or the NFL Network even existed. Not only weren't there sports blogs in 1988, there wasn't even a World Wide Web to put them on. Pete Rozelle was still commissioner, for God's sake. The sports media landscape was totally transformed during the time Theismann was in the Sunday night booth, and as long as he remained in that particular booth, he wasn't going to attract the kind of attention that could hurt him. Yes, he sucked, but as far as blogs were concerned, he'd always been there. He was just part of Sunday night football, the same way Howard Cosell was part of MNF for so long. We screamed at the TV and complained in our posts, and pointed out his tendentious arguments and dickhead tendencies, but ESPN didn't care. They figured he was doing just fine, because they didn't have anything to compare him to.

Then ESPN landed Monday Night Football. Though the Monday package was moving from broadcast to cable, meaning a smaller potential audience, its viewership would remain huge. (Advertisers actually prefer it to be on cable; they have no interest in reaching the kind of people who can't or won't spend money on cable TV.) That means millions of people who had not watched the ESPN Sunday night games regularly would be tuning in. And they would be used to hearing games called by Al Michaels and Madden -- the current gold standard of announcing -- who had done MNF on NBC. When the 2006 season started and these people tuned in the farce that ESPN had created, they were outraged. The Internet exploded with derision and disgust. This time, ESPN was ready to listen.

When you asked people last year what was wrong with Monday Night Football, you got a variety of answers, all of them logical: Tirico sounded thin and reedy, Kornheiser was neither funny nor insightful, the viewer e-mails were embarrassing, the celebrity interviews were an absolute insult, and Suzy Kolber just isn't as pretty as she used to be. What everybody agreed on, though, was that Theismann was an arrogant prick who made the broadcasts unpleasant, if you could watch them at all.

ESPN had been paying $550 million a year for the Sunday night games. When the network picked up the Monday night package, its fee rose to $1.1 billion a year. The network now had twice as much skin in the game, so everything was on the table. ESPN suddenly cared very much about what the bloggers and the callers to sports radio were saying about their NFL coverage. Joe Theismann had kept his job at ESPN for 17 years through inertia: He had been on the Sunday night game telecasts forever. But now he was being publicly identified as a threat to a $1.1 billion investment. He had to go, even if it meant the network would have to eat his contract.

All of which brings us back to the broadcast booth at FedEx Field, where Theismann runs his mouth and defends everything every player does. What's up with that?

J.B. is right in pointing the finger at Dan Snyder. Call Snyder what you will: genius, tyrant, chump, visionary, megalomaniac, dupe, menace, crazy man, whatever. But what he really is, is a star-fucker. Free agents are able to pry enormous contracts out of him based not on their football abilities, but on how much he recognizes their names. Mark Brunell got an $8 million signing bonus even though no one else wanted him. Adam Archuletta got the richest contract any safety has ever received because he was a "star," even though he was the worst possible fit for the Redskins defense. (He excels in run support, not coverage, which is what they tried to use him for.) Remember Deion Sanders? Jeff George? Mark Carrier? Big Daddy Wilkinson? And it's the same with coaches. Steve Spurrier is a star! Give him $25 million! Joe Gibbs is a Hall-of-Famer! Give him$25 million! Defense needs work? Make Marvin Lewis the highest-paid assistant in the league! Offense needs work? Make Al Saunders the highest-paid assistant in the league!

So it is with announcers. During the regular season, games are called by network teams. In the preseason, though, the teams hire their own announcers for those games not being shown on network TV. Some teams use local talent; others hire network guys. The best preseason pairing I've ever heard was Chris Meyers (of Fox) and Jaworski doing Buccaneers games. When Snyder went looking for someone to do 'Skins games, he naturally hit on Theismann. He's got a Super Bowl ring! He was a star with the Redskins! He was on national TV for 18 years! He's got a restaurant in Alexandria!

It's sad, really. Snyder's a damn billionaire. He owns the team. He doesn't have to hire Theismann. He chooses to, out of the misguided belief that because Theismann sat in a network booth for so long, he must be really good. But he isn't good. He's a punk. I'm just glad I don't have to hear his whiny voice anymore.

Friday, August 24, 2007

The best and worst NFL uniform redesigns

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Peter King strikes back

Now that Peter King no longer has Down and Distance to keep him honest, he's totally gone off the reservation. This week's Monday Morning Quarterback column not only includes an interview with Arthur Blank that floats in a sea of first-person pronouns, it has seven quotes of the week. We should have never called off the dogs.

Me loves the defensive heroes

Play of the week from a de facto rookie: Vikings linebacker Chad Greenway, a first-rounder who sat out all of last season after suffering a preseason injury, intercepted a Chad Pennington pass and ran it back 16 yards for a touchdown. The pass was supposed to be a safety valve, a simple dumpoff to the flat after Jets quarterback Pennington saw that his receivers were covered downfield. What was amazing was that Greenway saw the play breaking down long before Pennington did, knew that the checkdown was coming, and ran at least 10 yards at full speed to make the pick. By the time anyone else knew what was happening, Greenway was dancing in the end zone. Pretty remarkable field awareness for a guy who has yet to play in a full-speed NFL game.

Play of the week from a de facto AARP member: Patriots safety Rodney Harrison, 34 years old and still pissed to the high heavens, must see all the attention lavished on Titans phenom Vince Young as a sign of disrespect. (And anything involving words, deeds or thoughts is a sign of grave disrespect to Harrison.) Or perhaps he was just looking for payback against the Titans, after his 2006 season ended with an injury suffered from a cut block delivered by a Tennessee player (the biggest impact Bobby Wade will ever have on the NFL). However the psychic debt was incurred, Young's body had to write the check. On a 3rd-and-21, Young took a short drop and scanned the field for receivers. Harrison came screaming around the right side on a safety blitz and laid his shoulder square into Young's chest, rendering the QB horizontal a full two feet off the ground. Young never saw any of it ... and may still not remember it in the haze of an awful 5-for-17, four-sack day. I've long since made it clear that I don't like Harrison much, but damn, that boy can hit.

Wednesday, August 15, 2007

Moose and Jaws

Sad news to report from Fox: The best NFL broadcast booth team on television in being broken up this season. Happy news to report from ESPN: The worst NFL broadcast booth team on televsion has been broken up this season.

Like a lot of people, I long considered Pat Summerall to be the quintessential voice of NFL play-by-play. Fox obviously felt the same way, because after the network acquired the rights to NFL games in the mid-'90s, Summerall and Madden -- at the time the No. 1 team at CBS -- were among Fox Sports' first hires. After Madden moved to ABC and Summerall went into semi-retirement, Fox made Joe Buck, Troy Aikman and Chris Collinsworth its top team. Buck is fine -- I don't find him as smarmy as a lot of people do -- but he just doesn't have that football voice.

For my money, the best voice on NFL play by play today is Dick Stockton. And for the past several years, Stockton has been paired with, in my opinion, the second-best color man in the business: Darryl Johnston. Stock and Moose have been Fox's No. 2 team, but they've been No. 1 in my book. (Note that above I referred to them as the best broadcast booth team. That's because they've been saddled for years with Tony Siragusa, whose contribution to the broadcast has been to stand on the sidelines and say stupid shit four or five times a half.)

Well, it's all over now. Fox is reconfiguring its broadcast teams this year. Johnston is being paired with Kenny Albert, while Stockton will be sharing the booth with Brian Baldinger.

In essence, this is a wife-swap kind of deal. Albert and Baldnger were paired as Fox's No. 3 team last year, and they were almost impossible to listen to. Neither is totally horrible by himself, but together they were just dreadful. Albert sounds just enough like his dad that every time he opens his mouth, he just reminds you that you could be listening to Marv Albert on Westwood One Radio rather than this pale imitation with half his DNA. And Brian Baldinger sounds just enough like Bill Maas to make you just assume that everything coming out of his mouth is incorrect.

Working alongside Stockton could make Baldinger bearable, and Johnston might have the same positive effect on Albert, so something might come of this move. Still, the Stockton-Johnston team is football, and it will be missed.

You know who won't be missed? Joe Theismann. The new, Theismann-less Monday Night Football team has broadcast exactly one game together -- this week's Broncos-Niners preseason contest -- and it was light-years better than the best work by last year's MNF. It's simply amazing how replacing one guy out of three could change the show's entire dynamic.

Last year, whenever Tony Kornheiser would raise the slightest question, Theismann would snort at his ignorance. This year, Ron Jaworski just answers the question. When Kornheiser made an invalid assertion, Theismann would pout and rush to defend the wounded honor of football players as a victim class. Jaworski just says, "Tony, that's not true, and here's why." The give-and-take in the booth last season was so uncomfortable I would fast-forward through entire drives. This year I'm looking forward to watching the whole game (except for those nut-numbing, worthless celebrity interviews). And I'm not the only one; check out the take from Awful Announcing, a tough audience if there ever was one.

Kornheiser is still awful in his MNF role -- totally out of his proper element. Mike Tirico is still annoying (I hear Dan Patrick is available ...). But having Jaws in the booth is worth it. Ladies' glasses and all.

Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Nutshells '07: Our annual previews

Every year during the preseason, Down and Distance presents our Nutshell team previews. The goal is to sum up each team's key story lines in 50 words or less, though a few of these run over. Feel free to clip and save these to discuss with your family or clergyman.

Arizona Cardinals: It may take one more season beyond 2007 for the experiment to run its course, but we are as close as we've ever been to determining whether a team can actually have losing imprinted in its DNA.

Atlanta Falcons: Frankly, the team should be thankful for the dogfighting "distraction." It'll keep them from recognizing that their electrifying superstar once-in-a-lifetime quarterback hasn't gotten them anywhere.

Baltimore Ravens: It's tempting to say this season is Baltimore's last shot at a championship, except that last season probably was.

Buffalo Bills: Step 1: Draft a feature running back (Travis Henry), then let him go in free agency rather than pay him. Step 2: Draft a feature running back (Willis McGahee), then let him go in free agency rather than pay him. Step 3: Draft a feature running back (Marshawn Lynch) ...

Carolina Panthers: The Panthers went 7-9 in 2002, then 11-5 in 2003, then 7-9 in 2004, then 11-5 in 2005, then 8-8 in 2006. Every year they get picked to go to the Super Bowl. The pattern suggests that it might not be so absurd this year.

Chicago Bears: In Chicago, home to exactly one NFL champion in the past 43 years, the quarterback is on the hot seat after the Bears reached the Super Bowl in his first full season as a starter.

Cincinnati Bengals: Team owner Mike Brown and coach Marvin Lewis would like to thank Pacman Jones, Michael Vick and Jared Allen for keeping SWAT teams occupied during the offseason.

Cleveland Browns: In marked contrast to, say, the Dolphins, the Browns are on their third quarterback of the future in the last eight years. It seems that at least one acorn that fell off the Belichick coaching tree has landed on concrete.

Dallas Cowboys: I was just saying: Nothing will make spotlight-chaser Terrell Owens and skirt-chaser Tony Romo really focus like a loosey-goosey "players' coach."

Denver Broncos: The addition of Dre Bly gives the Broncos the best secondary in football. They already have a solid front seven, a perennially strong running game, great coaching, and even good kickers. The only question mark is quarterback Jay Cutler. So if things don't go well, count on Bly to identify the problem.

Detroit Lions: The problem is not that the Lions have used their top draft pick on receivers for four straight years. It's that they haven't done anything else.

Green Bay Packers: With Brett Favre poised to break all of Dan Marino's career passing records, we'll be hearing way more about the Packers than we should. In other words, this year won't be any different from the past five.

Houston Texans: Here's hoping that while Matt Schaub was the backup in Atlanta, he picked up a few tips from Michael Vick on what to do when the pocket collapses.

Indianapolis Colts: If they're going to win the Super Bowl, they're going to have to do it with an undermanned, undersized, underachieving defense. Again.

Jacksonville Jaguars: The quarterback controversy has been settled once and for all. No one has Jack Del Rio's confidence.

Kansas City Chiefs: When Larry Johnson ends what is probably the wisest contract holdout in years, Herman Edwards is going to kill him. Of course, that was the plan even before L.J. held out.

Miami Dolphins: Continually unable to find their quarterback of the future, they gave up and got another one from the past. Trent Green will remind fans of Dan Marino in at least one respect, though: Both are old in 2007.

Minnesota Vikings: A top-notch rush defense doesn't do you much good when the other team just throws the ball over your head the whole game. Getting into a shootout won't work, either; Tarvaris Jackson always brings a knife to a gunfight.

New England Patriots: With the exception of Corey Dillon, the Pats have long avoided going after big names, so why'd they pick up Adalius Thomas, Randy Moss and Donte Stallworth? Just to fuck with you.

New Orleans Saints: Though they're everyone's chic pick to make the Super Bowl, you can't catch the entire league by surprise two years in a row.

New York Giants: Chicken-and-egg time: When's the last time you saw a team with a "disciplinarian" coach that wasn't full of discipline problems?

New York Jets: They got to 10-6 last year by playing nondivisional games against the NFC North and AFC South (2 playoff teams). This year they get the NFC East and AFC West (5 playoff teams, plus the Broncos.)

Oakland Raiders: The first-round draft pick is still unsigned. The 32-year-old coach is rumored to be getting rid of players older than he is. Robert Gallery is turning into one of the all-time draft busts. The silver lining for the Raiders is that an NFL season is kind of like the SATs: You get 2 wins just for signing your name.

Philadelphia Eagles: They could go to the Super Bowl again, and yet, at some point in the season, some damn fans are still going to be agitating for A.J. Feeley.

Pittsburgh Steelers: They could win the Super Bowl again, and yet, at some point in the season, some damn fans are still going to be agitating for Charlie Batch.

St. Louis Rams: Every other preview reads: "You know the Rams are going to score!" From 1999-2001, the Rams had the No. 1 scoring offense each year. The past three years? 19th, 11th, 10th. Meanwhile, in their Super Bowl seasons, they had the No. 7 and No. 3 scoring defenses. The past three years? 19th, 30th, 23rd. Yes, you know the Rams are going to score. And you know the opposition is going to score more.

San Diego Chargers: This is the same team as the one that had the NFL's best record in 2006, with one small change: They replaced a coach who famously can't win playoff games with a coach who famously can't win regular season games.

San Francisco 49ers: Remember when the Texans went from 4-12 to 5-11 to 7-9, became a trendy pick as a playoff sleeper, then went 2-14? The 49ers, having gone from 2-14 to 4-12 to 7-9, are a trendy pick as a playoff sleeper. Stay tuned!

Seattle Seahawks: After a storybook season in 2005, Seattle has slid back toward the middle of the pack, which is usually good enough to win the NFC West.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers: First they traded for Jake Plummer, then they signed Jeff Garcia. If Garcia goes down, Jon Gruden has Drew Bledsoe, Jeff George, Tony Banks, and Stan Humphires on speed dial.

Tennessee Titans: Jeff Fisher is a fine coach, but a lone Super Bowl appearance eight years in the past won't be enough to save his job.

Washington Redskins: The very fact that we aren't talking about a raft of abominable free-agent signings indicates that it was a good offseason for the Redskins. They did sign Fred Smoot, but remember that he was a key player for the Skins before going to Minnesota and nearly getting the Vikings thrown out of the state.

Monday, August 13, 2007

Quinn? He's in. Russell? Better hustle!




As everyone is surely aware, quarterback Brady Quinn finally signed a contract with the Cleveland Browns and is now in camp, studying the playbook, practicing his progressions, and learning to accept personal blame for an entire team's futility -- an essential skill for a Browns quarterback. Considering what was written in this space a couple weeks about Quinn's contract situation, it's only fair to go back and re-examine the standoff between Cleveland management and Quinn and his agent. Who won?

As you'll recall, the Browns wanted Quinn to sign a contract commensurate with his status as the No. 22 pick in the 2007 draft. Quinn and agent Tom Condon argued that because Quinn had been considered a top-10 talent before the draft and only fell to 22 because of bad luck and bad timing, he should get a contract in the top-10 range. (Who wants a QB with bad luck and bad timing, anyway?)

Well, by the time the ink was dry, both sides were able claim victory -- though Condon is probably doing so through gritted teeth. The following chart, based on information in USA Today, shows all the 2007 first-round draft picks along with details on the contracts they have signed (YRS=length of contract, in years. TOTAL=total dollar value of contract, in millions. GUAR=total amount of guaranteed money, in millions):

#PLAYER, POSTEAMYRSTOTALGUAR
1JaMarcus Russell, qb OAK u n s i g n e d
2Calvin Johnson, wr DET 6 $64 $27.2
3Joe Thomas, ot CLE 5 $42.5$23
4Gaines Adams, de TB 6 $46 $18.6
5Levi Brown, ot ARZ 6 $62 $18.1
6LaRon Landry, s WSH 5 $41.5$17.5
7Adrian Peterson, rbMIN 5 $40.5$17
8Jamaal Anderson, deATL 5 $31 $15.4
9Ted Ginn Jr., wr/krMIA 5 $13 n/a
10Amobi Okoye, dt HOU 6 $17.6$12.8
11Patrick Willis, lb SF 5 $16.6$12
12Marshawn Lynch, rb BUF 5 $18.9$10.3
13Adam Carriker, dlSTL 5 $14.5$9.4
14Darrelle Revis, cb NYJ u n s i g n e d
15Lawrence Timmons, lb PIT 5 $15 $12
16Justin Harrell, dt GB 5 n/a n/a
17Jarvis Moss, de DEN 5 $18 n/a
18Leon Hall, cb CIN 5 $13.6$8.2
19Machael Griffin, db TEN 5 $13 $8
20Aaron Ross, cb NYG 5 $13.5$8
21Reggie Nelson, s JAX 5 $13.1$7.1
22Brady Quinn, qb CLE 5 $20.2$7.75
23Dwayne Bowe, wr KC 5 n/a n/a
24Brandon Merriweather, dbNE5$8.75n/a
25Jon Beason, lb CAR 5 n/a $6
26Anthony Spencer, lb/deDAL 5 $9 $6
27Robert Meachem, wr NO 5 $11 $5.7
28Joe Staley, ot SF 5 $8 $5.6
29Ben Grubbs, g BAL 5 $11 $5.2
30Craig Davis, wr SD 5 $11 $5.5
31Greg Olsen, te CHI 5 $10.9n/a
32Anthony Gonzalez, wrIND 5 $10.3$5.4

If you go by the total dollar value of the contract, it certainly does appear as if Quinn will be paid like a top-10 player: His $20.2 million deal is the ninth-largest among 2007 first-rounders. But as longtime Down and Distance readers know, the "total dollar" figures attached to NFL contracts are bogus. The contracts are almost never guaranteed for the full term, so teams can (and do) tear them up anytime. What really matters, then, is the amount of guaranteed cash in the contract -- usually in the form of a signing bonus and other monies paid out in the first two years of the deal. Looking only at the guaranteed money, we see Quinn is ... right about where he should be, in the $7 million-to-$8 million range.

As you look at the chart, you see that the contracts don't necessarily decline steadily in value from one pick to the next. The terms of each contract depend on a number of factors, including where the player is drafted, what position he plays, and the team's salary cap situation. Falcons defensive end Jamaal Anderson, for example, got a $31 million contract, but only about half of it is guaranteed. Steelers linebacker Lawrence Timmons, on the other hand, got a $15 million deal, of which about 80% is guaranteed. Anderson's contract is "twice as large," but he's guaranteed only about 25% more money. Sure, if both men played out their contracts, Anderson would get much more, but you can rest assured that Anderson won't play out his contract, because all that "extra" money is loaded onto the back end. He'll be asked to redo his contract to help the team fit under the salary cap. Timmons is more likely not to be so asked, because the team has already committed most of the money. The point is not that Anderson or Timmons got screwed. They didn't. They'll both be fine. The point is that the big numbers don't guarantee anything except an ego boost.

So what of Quinn? If he stinks up Cleveland, the team can cut him loose in a couple years and will only be out about $8 million. If he turns out to be an instant superstar, then the team will have him locked up for five years at an average cap vaue of about $4 million a year. (Last year, 22 quarterbacks had a higher cap value than that. Not bad, for the Browns.) Of course, if he does become a superstar, the team will probably end up wanting to extend him, which means a new contract, which means another big artificial figure, blah blah blah.

But enough about Quinn. He bores me. JaMarcus Russell, on the other hand, fascinates me.

Russell was well-regarded as a senior quarterback at Louisiana State, but he didn't jump to the top of the draft board until after his Tigers met Notre Dame (led by Quinn) in the Sugar Bowl. Having seen Russell star in the game (against Notre Dame's notoriously weak pass defense) while Quinn struggled (against LSU's famously dominant pass defense), the Raiders used the No. 1 pick on Russell.

Four months later, Russell is one of just two first-rounders still unsigned. The sticking point appears to be that Oakland wants him to sign a six-year deal, while Russell wants a five year deal. Russell's thinking: If I have one fewer year on the rookie contract, it means I'll start my career one year closer to my first free-agent contract, which is when players make the really big money. The Raiders' thinking: If we're going to commit $70 million to a kid, with $30 million guaranteed, we're going to have to insist on six years, if for no other reason than to significantly shrink the prorated signing bonus's impact on the salary cap.

So now Russell and the Raiders are in a standoff similar to that between Brady and the Browns. And I don't have any doubt whatsoever about whom the fans will side with in this dispute: the Raiders. When a team is offering an unproven kid $30 million over six years when so many people are making diddly over squat, that kid is not going to gain any friends by complaining about it. Even if he has a point -- and I'm not saying he does or doesn't -- it's just bad form.

Oakland has essentially called Russell's bluff by signing Daunte Culpepper to a one-year contract. That brings to three the number of QBs with starting experience that the Raiders have in camp: Culpepper, Andrew Walter and Josh McCown. (I didn't say they were great QBs with starting experience.) With Culpepper and others already ahead of him on the depth chart, Russell could end up playing the part of 2007's Philip Rivers. Remember? Rivers, the No. 4 pick, sat out most of camp in 2004 as contract negotiations dragged on, then spent two years riding the bench as Drew Brees suddenly exploded into a top-tier passer. In Rivers' case, the Chargers really were trying to screw him, as they wanted his total contract figure to include such "incentives" as winning the Super Bowl four times and being named MVP four times. Regardless, coming late to camp probably cost him two years of hs career. So JaMarcus might want to put is JaJohn Hancock on the line and get his ass to Napa for some 7-on-7s.

We'll talk about Daunte Culpepper and his never-ending audition roadshow some other time.