YEAARARARARARAAAAAAAAAARGGH!!!

I’m sorry. I couldn’t resist.

Those fightin mountaineers

Saw this article on espn.com today. Players face underaged drinking, resisting arrest charges. Not really that big of a story (sadly), since these incidents seem to be very commonly reported during the off-season. The players involved though? Joe “he’s like Jason Kidd” Mazzulla and Cameron Thoroughman.

In other news, Nadal’s roll just keeps on going. He started off the hard court series with a great win at the Rogers Masters Tennis tournament in Toronto. What makes this tournament interesting is that Federer lost in the 3rd round of the tournament. The ATP tennis tour has really got to change its ranking system. Federer’s still ranked #1 in the world, even though Nadal has only won the past two grand slams. Most experts think that hard courts are Nadal’s weakest surface. But there aren’t that many other legit contenders out there. I’m not sure if you can still pencil Federer in as the man to beat, especially if he has some more early exits over the hard court season. Djokovic would appear to be a contender, but it’ll be interesting to see how he regroups after his loss to Safin at Wimbledon. Roddick and Blake are the best hopes for the Americans, and I’m not sure if I even want to get my hopes up for them. Nadal might be able to continue his breakthrough year at the US Open.

oh yeah..omgz batman was awesome.

All of a sudden Eli Manning is indispensible?

I fully expect the media to show lots of love to the defending Super Bowl champs, whoever they may be on any given year. But I think it’s time to chill out a little bit on crowning Eli Manning as such a great QB. Whether it be madden ratings or this “indispensible players” article, it’s well out of hand. We’re talking about a guy who’s regular-season QB rating last year was 73.9 and has never had a season-long rating higher than 77.0.

But, of course, everyone will point to his amazing playoff performance where he had a 95.7 QB rating. However, if you look into the stats, it seems that he plays worse when the Giants depend on him more. Take his 4 playoff games:

Game	Attempts	QB Rating
Divisional	18	132.4
Wild Card	27	117.1
Super Bowl	34	87.3
Conference	40	72.0

His rating drops alarmingly quickly when he attempts more passes. If he truly were “indispensable”, I would expect that his rating would at least be close when he has to take the team on his shoulders. It’s great that he had a rating of 132.4 against Dallas, but are you going to tell me that a guy who only completed 12 passes in that game was indispensable to the team? Certainly being a great football player is about more than just stats and a QB rating, but it seems to me that his new reputation is living too much on one timely (clutch?) drive in the Super Bowl than on actual evidence.

If we want to talk “indispensable”, we should be talking Michael Strahan. In 2006 the Giants went 6-3 in games where he played, and 2-5 in games that he didn’t (I feel like everybody knows that stat already). Justin Tuck is a great player, but he isn’t going to fill the huge void left by arguably the best defensive end in the game. Looks like it’s time for Eli Manning to step up for real.

Final thing – I can’t write an Eli post without including this unforgettable picture from a few years ago. Yep, good luck Giants.

I don’t want to mention any names…

but this post might strike one of our contributors the wrong way.

ESPN has released some sort of list ranking the top college hoops programs since 1984. Their “formula” (I love when these ranking systems create some sort of arbitrary scoring system, and then justify the legitimacy of their rankings by pointing to these scientific scores) can be found here. They even say, “But with ESPN’s Prestige Rankings, there is no such argument. We let the numbers do the talking.” Sure thing.

But here’s what really caught my eye: Plenty of big names turned up small.

Regardless of the hmm..factual basis for these rankings, Providence ranked a paltry 111. Yes, the Providence that contributed L.O. and Shammgod.

In other basketball news, the Redeem Team opens with an exhibition game this Friday at 8 PM against Canada. Dwight Howard’s been cleared to play, although it’ll be interesting to see how the team’s supposed lack of size will hinder them. I don’t really buy that argument too much – feeding the ball to Tim Duncan, probably one of the greatest big men of all time, didn’t save us last year. I like our chances with a smaller, faster line up. And I’m not really sure how much “smaller” our line-up would be if Lebron James (6’9ish, 250ish) was our 4. U-S-A!

Dear Donovan

D-MAC. McBabbulous. (i’m out of nicknames already. Donovan’s a pretty bada** name as it is though..so you probably don’t need one). What’s going on man? Busy training, working hard for the season? Rehabbing that shoulder that made you miss the eagles’ training camp? No big deal, it’s not like the eagles are counting on you or anything. Oh wait. We have at best, a 2-year window for legitimately competing for a super bowl. Our offense consists of: 1) the offensive line allowing every single pass-rusher/blitzer/fan through the line, 2) you attempting to scramble and 3) finally shoveling a pass to the best receiving running back in the league.

Thankfully, Brian Westbrook has been an absolute stud these past couple of years. People don’t really appreciate his awesomness, which is pretty cool considering I picked him up in the 2nd round of one of my fantasy football leagues last year. Despite some huge injury problems with the rest of my lineup, Westbrook basically carried my team last year. He also helped the real eagles out, finishing as an all-pro and making the pro-bowl. And who can forget this play? (btw..I love the offensive lineman’s celebration in the corner of the screen on that play) I think that deserves merit for inclusion as some sort of top ten plays list. Seriously, how many running backs would give up an extra touchdown (and possibly millions of dollars in contract incentives) for their team? Anyways…back to you McNabb. I don’t know if I can realistically expect a super bowl this season. You asked for play makers in the offseason (hint: wide receivers), and the Eagles promptly went out and got Asante Samuel. Idk…I hope he turns out to be a good investment, but he thrived in the Pats’ system, while the Eagles are much more blitz-friendly under Jim Johnson. Meh. I’d have to say our biggest offensive acquisition was DeSean Jackson, the Cal receiver, who appears to have had some mini-T.O. moments…except without the NFL promise. At least he’ll be good for our punt return game.

(I guess this is gonna sound similar to my Andy Roddick letter. Meh. Whatever. E-mail us.) As big of an Eagles fan as I am, I think I might be a bigger Donovan McNabb fan. A lotta people talk about players overcoming adversity. You definitely did that. Your draft day – Eagles fans booed the heck out of you, hoping for Ricky “I’m too busy getting high” Williams (lol…I love the closeup of those fans). Rush Limbaugh provided his hmm…”different” perspective on your success in the league (looks like ESPN has smartly pulled the video of that clip). The Eagles failing to advance past 3 straight NFC conference championship games.  T.O. was T.O., and decided to absolutely destroy (split infinitive. meh.) any team chemistry the eagles had, splitting the team in two. There was more drama on that team than season 3 of the O.C. ( OHHH YEAH…pop culture reference. bit dated..but still.) He called you out through the media, trashed your leadership, and trashed your play. I think this is sufficient excuse to link the following two clips: OD, OD, OD OD, OD following T.O.’s drug overdose in his return to Philly, and T.O. crying about a “quarterback”. Things haven’t been good for you these past couple of years. Kelvin Kolb was drafted (over some wide receivers. again) and he appears to be doing a great job in the training camps. You’ve missed a lot of time the past couple of seasons, due to groin injuries and ACL tears. To make matters worse, Jeff Garcia led an inspired playoff run with the eagles while you were gone, and freakin AJ FEELY almost led the eagles to a huge upset over the pats. (Don’t worry..AJ Feely realized he was AJ Feely and then chucked up an awful interception towards the end of the game).

Despite these bad memories…we gotta mention the Mcnabbulous ones. One of the sickest plays I’ve ever seen, against Dallas. WTTF!?!?!? NO!?!?! I’ve had that favorited for months, in preparation for this column, and now it’s removed from youtube. You scrambled for 14.1 seconds, eluding several Dallas defenders, before finally chucking it to Freddie Mitchell. Speaking of Freddie Mitchell, who can forget 4th and 26!?!? (also removed from youtube). You were also the 1st player to throw for more than 30 touchdowns and fewer than 10 interceptions in a season (until Brady). In 2004, the only year that you have had any quality receivers, the Eagles went to the super bowl. You put up a 104.1 qb rating that year. The Eagles actually had a chance in that super bowl too – but your sickness and the 3 interceptions (including 2 boneheaded red zone hurls) ruined chances of possibly completely turning your career and legacy around.

It’s really kind of sad to think about what your career could have been D-Mac. You were probably the most athletic and skilled quarterback in the league (except for perhaps Michael Vick). You never had the wide receiver help you needed to dominate. You’ve dealt with some of the harshest fans and sports critics. You’ve been back stabbed by your teammates. You still have the lowest interceptions thrown per pass ratio in the history of the NFL. (2.1%). There’s not much time, but you’ve still got a few more great years.

This sums up everything your career’s been.

(The Eagles scored 9 points in the game following that video’s premier. Meh.)

Good luck McNabb. And I am expecting a super bowl run this year.
Btw..you should check out his website – it’s pretty fly.

Going the extra yard… or foot

Looks like the NCAA 3-point line is going to be pushed back by a foot. The only person who is unaffected by this? Taylor King, who shoots the ball whenever he gets it without regard to such things as “lines” on the court. However, it turns out it really isn’t an “old line” because they will preserve the memory of it by letting the women use it.

But making the issue more confusing, the women didn’t move their line back. So, in the majority of arenas, where the men and women play on the same court, there will be two lines marking the 3-point line.

Women who are insulted by this, look at the bright side: at least they didn’t move yours forward by a foot. Just kidding – there some amazing players like Abby Waner who can easily handle the line just how it is now.

But the real reason I had to make this post was for this bit of news:

“You’ll still see Tyler [Hansbrough] shoot some this year, and you’ll see [incoming freshman] Tyler Zeller, too,” Williams said. “Both those guys can shoot them.”

YES!!! I can’t wait to see if Hansbrough can improve on his 0% 3-point shooting from last season. And he did take 7 shots, so I’m going to say that is a statistical anomaly. Hopefully Roy Williams sticks to his word and lets him shoot 3′s all day. In fact, we’ll put all 5 of our men in the paint just chillin in exchange for Hansbrough shooting uncontested 3′s on each possession. In reality though, this would probably turn out well for UNC because Hansbrough is such a “gritty, gutsy” player that will surely step up to the challenge… of course.

untitled

THE OLYMPICS ARE COMING THE OLYMPICS ARE COMING!!!!!!!!!!

one month countdown officially in effect. can’t wait.

Wow…that was unbelievable

I hate to knock off the dare post because I really want to see these supposed “readers” I keep seeing in our stats. Hope you guys had a chance to watch today’s Wimbledon – a lot of people are calling it one of the greatest matches they’ve ever seen. Nadal finally beat Federer in an epic five set final that spanned several rain delays. Nadal jumped out to an early 2 set lead, but Federer clawed back to win 2 straight tiebreakers. Nadal won the 5th set, 9-7. The level of play was absolutely amazing, and in the post-game interviews, John McEnroe kept saying what an honor it was just to bee able to watch the game. Tennis is also interesting because as soon as the match is over, the 2 finalists have to stand right next to each other. The loser’s gotta stand there, faking a smile and talking nicely about the dude who just beat him. Pretty awkward. Great, great match though.

Redskins Secret Weapon

I hate to knock off the amazing post currently on top, so I’m putting a timer on this and it will be posted once I’m out of town (this is pretty cool).

Redskins kicker Shaun Suisham has improved his game… significantly… during the offseason. Here’s video of one of his recent kicks at Redskins Park: SWEEEEET! With a leg like that he could kick a bowling ball 50 yards. Suisham and 6th-round draft pick Durant Brooks hope to improve an already-great special teams unit. Brooks has quite a leg himself: HUUUGE!

OK so I admit maybe only one video is real (obviously somebody had too much time on their hands to make a LeBron James-like video), but hey at least Brooks is a beast.

RIP Seattle Supersonics

You will be sorely missed.