THIS & THAT..........THE FRIDAY EDITION
Missouri Tiger fans will be happy to hear Derrion Thomas, son of the late Derrick Thomas, intends to walk-on at Mizzou. The 6' 3" 205-pound defender from Blue Springs South High School, outside of Kansas City, always wanted to attend Missouri. He wasn't heavily recruited because he didn't play football until his senior year in high school. Thomas was an all-state swimmer for his high school. Another reason for the lack of recruiting on Thomas is a swimmer's body doesn't transition to football without a lot of work. He has the discipline, but he'll need a load of conditioning & weight training before he's ready to run down any Big-12 QB's. Still, Derrion has the pedigree & the fact he's always wanted to play in Columbia, is certainly good news for Gary Pinkel's program & their fans.
Sports Illustrated's Peter King recently compiled his list of the Top-10 most thrilling players in NFL history. I totally agreed with his top-5, Gale Sayers(my favorite player of all-time, even tho he went to Kansas), Barry Sanders, Deoin Sanders, Bo Jackson & Randall Cunningham. Numbers 6-10 were Buddy Young, Devon Hester, Don Hutson, Fran Tarkenton & Lawrence Taylor. I never saw Young or Hutson play, so they wouldn't have been on my list. Neither would Tarkenton, I always thought he was one of the most overrated players in league history. If you were to drop those 3, I'd add Jim Brown, Earl Campbell & Troy Polamalu. Both Brown & Campbell could run over multiple defenders on one carry & then on the next snap, turn the corner & go untouched 80 yards, outrunning everyone on the field. Just the post season Polamalu had last year alone would get him on my list, one of the most instinctive defenders ever. Productive, durable & tough, Polamalu is seemingly never out of position. I will never forget the play he made on a Joe Flacco quarterback sneak, it was one I'd never seen made. A very special player. Just missing my list would have been Randy Moss(disappeared while in Oakland), Derrick Thomas, Joe Montana & Ronnie Lott.
Man, talk about holding a grudge, Dallas Cowboy backup quarterback, Jon Kitna, said in an interview after a 2006 upset by Kitna's then Detroit Lions, 39-31, over the Cowboys, that they had zeroed in on linebacker Brady James. Kitna commented "we identified #56 on film, it looked like he didn't know where he was". Now Kitna & James are teammates & James was recently asked during a radio interview, if he & Kitna had were O.K. now. James replied "he just raked me over the coals, I've definitely had visions of emasculating him". Yikes. Here's a linebacker who did appear lost for a couple of seasons, tho he did have good '07 & '08 campaigns. According to The Dallas Morning News Cowboy blog, Kitna apologized in '07 & again after he was traded to the Cowboys. But Brady seems like he doesn't want to move on, c'mon, the guy's your teammate now, get over it already!
Attention readers: Caution! Crabby, p.o.'d blogger on a rant.
In the last 10 days I've seen a very disturbing trend repeatedly in American journalism, that is another reminder how far this once respected profession has fallen. Michael Jackson died 9 days ago & Steve McNair was killed last Saturday. In both cases, neither family was even allowed to bury their loved one before members of the media began spewing negative stories about both men, much of it, pure speculation. For God's sake, can we wait till after the person is at least buried before you begin your character assassination? I'm not defending Jackson or McNair, it's hard to have much respect for either man's personal life, but how about letting their families grieve before trashing nearly every aspect of a person's life. The families are going thru enough without having to face accusations, rumors & speculation. Yes, the cause of death should be identified, then released to the public after the family is informed, but do we need to know Steve McNair dated a stripper in Minneapolis several years ago? If that alleged relationship was related to his death, that would be one thing, but it wasn't. Do we need to be reminded over & over Michael Jackson's father, Joe Jackson, beat & abused him as a child? That he had an out of court settlement on a civil suit naming Michael as a molester? The 24-hour news cycle we now live in has a lot of time to fill & apparently bad news gets better ratings than saying anything nice. Newspapers are struggling to survive, so let's take the route of The New York Daily News took Friday & print an article with "unnamed sources" trashing McNair before his family has his funeral service in Mississippi today. Michael O'Keefe quotes a former strip club assistant manager who claims McNair dated one of the club's strippers & he thought she'd be heartbroken by the news of McNair's death. He stated McNair frequented the club 'often'. Let's see, McNair played & lived in Nashville, his football responsibilities taking at least 6 consecutive months out of a year & McNair played in Minnesota exactly twice in his entire career. Often you say? O'Keefe never talked to the stripper, never identified her by name, never identified the former assistant manager & didn't even travel to Minneapolis regarding this story. But let's not let lousy journalism or any compassion for McNair's 4 sons stand in the way of writing some trash that might generate a few more readers for a dying newspaper. It was the same for Michael Jackson, the speculation ran wild as to his cause of death, we were told how in debt he was & in most cases the viewer/reader knew as much as the writer/broadcaster, which was very little. I'm certain his children were sheltered from this most of the time, but do they need to hear it right now? I didn't have the guts to see what the blogasphere was saying about both men, I couldn't stomach the thought of it. When did American journalism slide so far into disrespectful & dishonest blather? It looks to me that they only care about their circulation or TV ratings. Remember when The National Enquirer was the trashiest paper on the stands? They now get a run for their money each & everyday from once proud newspapers willing to get down into the gutter with them. Ditto for talk radio, network & cable news, so much dishonesty & agenda driven crap with so little respect for anyone getting in the way of their story. If you disagree with me, you too could be called any number of vile names or have your reputation dragged thru the mud right here on this blog. Not by me of course, nope, I'd use an unnamed source to do it & then hide behind the First Amendment, that's real journalism.
Sports Illustrated's Peter King recently compiled his list of the Top-10 most thrilling players in NFL history. I totally agreed with his top-5, Gale Sayers(my favorite player of all-time, even tho he went to Kansas), Barry Sanders, Deoin Sanders, Bo Jackson & Randall Cunningham. Numbers 6-10 were Buddy Young, Devon Hester, Don Hutson, Fran Tarkenton & Lawrence Taylor. I never saw Young or Hutson play, so they wouldn't have been on my list. Neither would Tarkenton, I always thought he was one of the most overrated players in league history. If you were to drop those 3, I'd add Jim Brown, Earl Campbell & Troy Polamalu. Both Brown & Campbell could run over multiple defenders on one carry & then on the next snap, turn the corner & go untouched 80 yards, outrunning everyone on the field. Just the post season Polamalu had last year alone would get him on my list, one of the most instinctive defenders ever. Productive, durable & tough, Polamalu is seemingly never out of position. I will never forget the play he made on a Joe Flacco quarterback sneak, it was one I'd never seen made. A very special player. Just missing my list would have been Randy Moss(disappeared while in Oakland), Derrick Thomas, Joe Montana & Ronnie Lott.
Man, talk about holding a grudge, Dallas Cowboy backup quarterback, Jon Kitna, said in an interview after a 2006 upset by Kitna's then Detroit Lions, 39-31, over the Cowboys, that they had zeroed in on linebacker Brady James. Kitna commented "we identified #56 on film, it looked like he didn't know where he was". Now Kitna & James are teammates & James was recently asked during a radio interview, if he & Kitna had were O.K. now. James replied "he just raked me over the coals, I've definitely had visions of emasculating him". Yikes. Here's a linebacker who did appear lost for a couple of seasons, tho he did have good '07 & '08 campaigns. According to The Dallas Morning News Cowboy blog, Kitna apologized in '07 & again after he was traded to the Cowboys. But Brady seems like he doesn't want to move on, c'mon, the guy's your teammate now, get over it already!
Attention readers: Caution! Crabby, p.o.'d blogger on a rant.
In the last 10 days I've seen a very disturbing trend repeatedly in American journalism, that is another reminder how far this once respected profession has fallen. Michael Jackson died 9 days ago & Steve McNair was killed last Saturday. In both cases, neither family was even allowed to bury their loved one before members of the media began spewing negative stories about both men, much of it, pure speculation. For God's sake, can we wait till after the person is at least buried before you begin your character assassination? I'm not defending Jackson or McNair, it's hard to have much respect for either man's personal life, but how about letting their families grieve before trashing nearly every aspect of a person's life. The families are going thru enough without having to face accusations, rumors & speculation. Yes, the cause of death should be identified, then released to the public after the family is informed, but do we need to know Steve McNair dated a stripper in Minneapolis several years ago? If that alleged relationship was related to his death, that would be one thing, but it wasn't. Do we need to be reminded over & over Michael Jackson's father, Joe Jackson, beat & abused him as a child? That he had an out of court settlement on a civil suit naming Michael as a molester? The 24-hour news cycle we now live in has a lot of time to fill & apparently bad news gets better ratings than saying anything nice. Newspapers are struggling to survive, so let's take the route of The New York Daily News took Friday & print an article with "unnamed sources" trashing McNair before his family has his funeral service in Mississippi today. Michael O'Keefe quotes a former strip club assistant manager who claims McNair dated one of the club's strippers & he thought she'd be heartbroken by the news of McNair's death. He stated McNair frequented the club 'often'. Let's see, McNair played & lived in Nashville, his football responsibilities taking at least 6 consecutive months out of a year & McNair played in Minnesota exactly twice in his entire career. Often you say? O'Keefe never talked to the stripper, never identified her by name, never identified the former assistant manager & didn't even travel to Minneapolis regarding this story. But let's not let lousy journalism or any compassion for McNair's 4 sons stand in the way of writing some trash that might generate a few more readers for a dying newspaper. It was the same for Michael Jackson, the speculation ran wild as to his cause of death, we were told how in debt he was & in most cases the viewer/reader knew as much as the writer/broadcaster, which was very little. I'm certain his children were sheltered from this most of the time, but do they need to hear it right now? I didn't have the guts to see what the blogasphere was saying about both men, I couldn't stomach the thought of it. When did American journalism slide so far into disrespectful & dishonest blather? It looks to me that they only care about their circulation or TV ratings. Remember when The National Enquirer was the trashiest paper on the stands? They now get a run for their money each & everyday from once proud newspapers willing to get down into the gutter with them. Ditto for talk radio, network & cable news, so much dishonesty & agenda driven crap with so little respect for anyone getting in the way of their story. If you disagree with me, you too could be called any number of vile names or have your reputation dragged thru the mud right here on this blog. Not by me of course, nope, I'd use an unnamed source to do it & then hide behind the First Amendment, that's real journalism.
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