THIS AND THAT..........TUESDAY
I told you last week about the Dolphins' stadium being branded as "Landshark Stadium". Landshark Lager is owned by Margaritaville, singer Jimmy Buffett's company. Buffett hopes the beer, brewed by Anheuser- Busch, receives a lot of exposure & quickly becomes a household name. Still, I think this is a strange marriage.
This talk of the Super Bowl being played in London floating around a couple of weeks ago, then totally discounted by the NFL, has been rekindled. The city of London has expressed their interest in hosting the sports' biggest game. Let's put this to rest for all time, please. The Super Bowl is not the Olympics, taking bids from all over the world. It is broadcast all over the world, but it is a uniquely American game. Plus the game has started at 6:20 PM, eastern time, for almost 20 years. If the league wants to keep that east coast primetime slot, the game would have to start at 11:20 PM London time, which would put the 2-minute warning in the 4th quarter at about 3 AM. Let's not hear of anymore foreign Super Bowls, agreed?
The Green Bay Packers aren't 'easing' into the 3-4 defense. They brought in Dom Capers, a 3-4 specialist, as the new defensive coordinator & he hired Kevin Greene, former Steeler & Panther, to coach the outside linebackers, his old position. Greene is third all time in sacks with 160, so it makes sense he could help with this transition.
The recently completed Raider mini camp appears to have been somewhat disappointing. First round surprise pick, WR Darius Heyward-Bey, dropped more than a few passes, including the last 3 thrown his way. Second round pick, Michael Mitchell, didn't fare too well either, blowing several assignments & dropping 2 potential interceptions. Quarterback JaMarcus Russell had a "poor camp", in the words of an Oakland scribe. Russell has put forth less effort, since being drafted #1 overall in 2006, than any QB in the league. That's not me talking, that's from a couple of former Oakland coaches & teammates.
In a vote that surprised many, Big-12 football coaches decided to keep the tiebreaker rule that allowed Oklahoma to play in the 2009 BCS Championship game instead of Texas. The conference's tiebreaker was whichever team had the highest BCS ranking, would play for the title, regardless of the head to head meeting. Of course Oklahoma's Bob Stoops had quite an advantage against Texas' Mack Brown in this vote. Stoops' allies included K-State's Bill Snyder(Stoops was a member of his staff) & former Stoops' assistants, KU's Mark Mangino, Texas Tech's Mike Leach & Nebraska's Bo Pelini. Another vote is yet to be taken by Big-12 athletic directors, but it's doubtful the outcome will be any different.
Speaking of the Big-12, after reading all of the spring practice reviews, I'd say Kansas will be tough to stop in the North Division. Nebraska could challenge, but 2-time defending champ, Missouri, has too many holes to make a serious run at the title. Oklahoma could have the best defense in the entire league, but having graduated 4 of 5 O-linemen & both starting wide receivers will make it tough to beat the Longhorns for the South Division crown. Texas lost only 5 starters overall & Colt McCoy & company look to be the team to beat.
Has anyone noticed that since Lane Kiffin took over at the University of Tennessee, 11 scholarship players have left the program voluntarily. It's normal for a few players to leave when a new coaching staff is brought in, but not 20% of your 56 scholarship players, that should be concerning to Volunteer fans.
Over the last few years the Cincinnati Bengals have received a lot of flak about leading the league in arrests & suspensions. Head coach Marvin Lewis has repeatedly said things have to change & how important it is for the Bengals to assemble players of better character. I think they've really made a concerted effort to do this during this off season. They signed twice convicted, twice suspended & twice released defensive tackle, Tank Marshall. So he had a few fully automatic assault rifles & some armor-piercing ammunition, big deal right? They drafted Rey Maualuga who has several alcohol-related arrests on his rap sheet, two team disciplinary suspensions & an assault charge. Also drafted was RB Bernard Scott, a 25-year old rookie who played at 4 different colleges, kicked out of 2, once at Central Arkansas, he was kicked out of the program for attacking a coach. He has a total of 5 arrests & has twice been sentenced to anger management programs. He could be perfect in Cincinnati. So if some of these guys go bad & Marvin Lewis goes into his "we've got to stop this bad behavior" routine, just remember the kind of characters they choose to associate themselves with year after year.
This talk of the Super Bowl being played in London floating around a couple of weeks ago, then totally discounted by the NFL, has been rekindled. The city of London has expressed their interest in hosting the sports' biggest game. Let's put this to rest for all time, please. The Super Bowl is not the Olympics, taking bids from all over the world. It is broadcast all over the world, but it is a uniquely American game. Plus the game has started at 6:20 PM, eastern time, for almost 20 years. If the league wants to keep that east coast primetime slot, the game would have to start at 11:20 PM London time, which would put the 2-minute warning in the 4th quarter at about 3 AM. Let's not hear of anymore foreign Super Bowls, agreed?
The Green Bay Packers aren't 'easing' into the 3-4 defense. They brought in Dom Capers, a 3-4 specialist, as the new defensive coordinator & he hired Kevin Greene, former Steeler & Panther, to coach the outside linebackers, his old position. Greene is third all time in sacks with 160, so it makes sense he could help with this transition.
The recently completed Raider mini camp appears to have been somewhat disappointing. First round surprise pick, WR Darius Heyward-Bey, dropped more than a few passes, including the last 3 thrown his way. Second round pick, Michael Mitchell, didn't fare too well either, blowing several assignments & dropping 2 potential interceptions. Quarterback JaMarcus Russell had a "poor camp", in the words of an Oakland scribe. Russell has put forth less effort, since being drafted #1 overall in 2006, than any QB in the league. That's not me talking, that's from a couple of former Oakland coaches & teammates.
In a vote that surprised many, Big-12 football coaches decided to keep the tiebreaker rule that allowed Oklahoma to play in the 2009 BCS Championship game instead of Texas. The conference's tiebreaker was whichever team had the highest BCS ranking, would play for the title, regardless of the head to head meeting. Of course Oklahoma's Bob Stoops had quite an advantage against Texas' Mack Brown in this vote. Stoops' allies included K-State's Bill Snyder(Stoops was a member of his staff) & former Stoops' assistants, KU's Mark Mangino, Texas Tech's Mike Leach & Nebraska's Bo Pelini. Another vote is yet to be taken by Big-12 athletic directors, but it's doubtful the outcome will be any different.
Speaking of the Big-12, after reading all of the spring practice reviews, I'd say Kansas will be tough to stop in the North Division. Nebraska could challenge, but 2-time defending champ, Missouri, has too many holes to make a serious run at the title. Oklahoma could have the best defense in the entire league, but having graduated 4 of 5 O-linemen & both starting wide receivers will make it tough to beat the Longhorns for the South Division crown. Texas lost only 5 starters overall & Colt McCoy & company look to be the team to beat.
Has anyone noticed that since Lane Kiffin took over at the University of Tennessee, 11 scholarship players have left the program voluntarily. It's normal for a few players to leave when a new coaching staff is brought in, but not 20% of your 56 scholarship players, that should be concerning to Volunteer fans.
Over the last few years the Cincinnati Bengals have received a lot of flak about leading the league in arrests & suspensions. Head coach Marvin Lewis has repeatedly said things have to change & how important it is for the Bengals to assemble players of better character. I think they've really made a concerted effort to do this during this off season. They signed twice convicted, twice suspended & twice released defensive tackle, Tank Marshall. So he had a few fully automatic assault rifles & some armor-piercing ammunition, big deal right? They drafted Rey Maualuga who has several alcohol-related arrests on his rap sheet, two team disciplinary suspensions & an assault charge. Also drafted was RB Bernard Scott, a 25-year old rookie who played at 4 different colleges, kicked out of 2, once at Central Arkansas, he was kicked out of the program for attacking a coach. He has a total of 5 arrests & has twice been sentenced to anger management programs. He could be perfect in Cincinnati. So if some of these guys go bad & Marvin Lewis goes into his "we've got to stop this bad behavior" routine, just remember the kind of characters they choose to associate themselves with year after year.
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