Where Should Cam Go?

With the QB's working out yesterday at the NFL combine, we're starting to get a better feel for where certain guys slot. One of the big unknown's is which team will take the risk on Cam Newton.

Big, mobile Qb's that are natural leaders don't come around often and for all Newton's down faults and short comings, if your team doesn't have a "franchise Quarterback" is he worth a roll of the dice?

Personally I'm not a Cam Newton fan, however if I'm the Buffalo Bills, to me he's worth the risk at 3.

1) They're a team that's been down for the past 10 years, so why not risk it?

2) They already have some nice pieces in place on the defensive side

3) They're in a division with the Patriots, Jets and Dolphins. They need a marquee guy

I'm not sure what the question is, but Ryan Fitzpatrick is not the answer. Yes Fitzpatrick had a nice year last year, but if Buffalo hopes to get back to being a top team in the league, he's not leading you to any division titles or play off runs.

A couple years ago, the Jets traded up to 5 in order to select Mark Sanchez and while he hasn't torn up the league, he has supplied the Jets with a young guy they can market and build the team around. Yes, they've brought in a bunch of high priced older veterans, but the constant is Sanchez and the promise of the future he holds. That's what Newton would bring to the table. A guy the Bills can market and say "Cam's the guy, come join us and see what we've got going on here". Very few players in the league are anxious at this point to go play in Buffalo because Ryan Fitzpatrick is running the offense.

Could Newton be a bust ala JaMarcus Russell? Sure, but if I'm Buffalo, that's the risk I take. If he doesn't work out, whats the downside? Your franchise ends up coming in last in the division a couple more years? The upside is the excitement he'd bring back to the franchise and if his potential does pan out, he could quickly turn around your organization and make them relevant again.

Will Buffalo do this? No, they'll go defense with either one of the big 3 guys (Bowers, Fairly, Dareus) and come in last in the division again and be an after thought in the AFC East.

Dare to be great Buffalo!

Bill

Wainwright Done For The Year

What a big blow for the Cardinals:

Wainwright to have Tommy John Surgery

Goes to show you how quickly an injury can come out of no where and change the whole complexion of a teams season. A couple questions:

1) Wainwright has thrown the most innings the last 2 years of any National League pitcher (463 innings) and that is even while being shut down last September due to "arm soreness". Dave Duncan, the Cardinals pitching coach, seems to get a lot favorable press for his coaching ability, do we start blaming him for overuse?

2) I gotta think the arm soreness last year was the start of this injury, why has it taken so long to come out? Why wait to the start of spring training for this to come to a head?

I wish Wainwright good luck with the surgery and recovery. At this point, they seem to have this injury / medical procedure down and guys come back strong afterwards.

The Cardinals upgraded their offense in the off season, now what to do about losing their number 1 starter?

Bill

Carmelo Trade Good For Denver

Personally I think the Nuggets did great with what they got with Carmelo. Every one and their sister knew he wasn't coming back, so their hand was forced and they had to get something for him, or risk pulling a "Cleveland" over the summer.

They did well playing off the Knicks, Nets and whoever else they could interest in trade talk even though it was pretty obvious he was going to NY whether now in a trade or this summer as a free agent.

Do you think Cleveland (and probably to a lesser extent Toronto) management is sitting there going "damn" in seeing what Denver was able to pull off? I'll bet Cleveland wishes they'd pulled the trigger last summer and jettisoned LeBron knowing what they know now.

What was Denver able to get? Wilson Chandler, Danilo Gallinari, Raymond Felton, Timofey Mozgoz, 1st round pick, 2 2nd round picks and $3 million in cash. Just as importantly, they were able to send back some players with contracts they didn't want, so they've freed up their salary cap in order to bring in other players. Will they keep all those players they got in return? Probably not, there's already rumors Denver is looking to move Gallinari and Mozgoz, so they're not done dealing yet.

Is Denver a "better team" right now without Carmelo? No, but they've freed up their cap space and are now able to go into free agency and sign some players. Carmelo had been with Denver for 7 years and in that time, they'd made it out of the first round exactly once so this wasn't some perennial championship team they disassembled here.

Tough getting rid of a star player, but I think Denver did a great job getting something in return.

Bill

Declaring War On The BCS

At least that's what Mark Cuban is doing.

He's formed (forming) a company called Radical Football LLC with the goal of privatizing the college football postseason.

The thought is take "x" amount of money (say $500 million), put it in a bank, invite certain teams to participate and payouts go from there. You'd keep certain aspects of the bowl season and add in more of a private payout. The bowls would still make money and the schools would still make money. If a school from a non traditional power league has a great year and looks to be a top team, they have a chance at participating in this private "championship" whether or not their league belonged to some predetermined "BCS" league.

Is the idea perfect? No, but it does start to address 1) the problems with the BCS and 2) keeps the history of the bowls.

I hold no allusion this will come about, but I like the fact someone is trying to offer a solution instead of saying "the BCS sucks, get rid of it". That on its own is not going to happen without a viable option to it. To much money is involved at this point in the current structure of the BCS with many powerful programs collecting a huge payday every year.

What are your thoughts?

Bill

What's An Owner To Do?

I think owners of professional sports teams are in a catch 22. If they resign their superstar player (or go add a super star thru trade or free agency) they're criticized for over paying. If they don't try to add one of those guys they're criticized for not trying to "win". So which is it?

The media said Arte Moreno was cheap for not paying "what ever it cost" to add Carl Crawford (or Adrian Beltre) in free agency and consequently didn't try to improve the Angels. He goes out and adds Vernon Wells and is instantly criticized for the size of Wells contract (and no one mentions Wells instantly improves the Angels). If he'd added Crawford or Beltre, you know he would have been criticized for overpaying ("7 years for a guy who'll be 36 at the end of his contract, has never hit 20 home runs in a season and is known for his speed? Are they crazy???").

William DeWitt and the rest of the Cardinals ownership, is in that position right now with Albert Pujols. Do they make Pujols the highest paid player in the game, blow out their salary cap and limit their ability to add other free agents for the next 7 years in order to keep Pujols? Or, do they let him go and try to add additional pieces that help strengthen the club in multiple areas? No matter what they decide, they'll be criticized.

Moving to football, the Colts parted ways with safety Bob Sanders last week, as it would have taken too much money to retain a talented player with to much of an injury history. They're conserving resources to pay Manning and decided to let Sanders go. People in the media are up in arms saying the "Colts are showing no loyalty to one of the pieces of their Championship team, how dare they let a veteran go after he's given so much to them"?

No matter what management and ownership do, you have the media on them complaining either about "fiscal responsibility" or "doesn't care about putting a winning product on the field".

What's an owner to do?

Bill

LA Stadium

If Los Angeles finally builds an NFL stadium, who do you want to play there?

A) Expansion Team

B) Minnesota Vikings

C) Jacksonville Jaguars

D) San Diego Chargers

E) Other

If this all comes about, I'm hoping it's the Jaguars that move here. Out of those three, Jacksonville has the least amount of history and while it admittedly would suck for their current fans, they probably have the least amount of passion from their fan base.

Vikings and Chargers seem to be wrangling for a new stadium and are using moving as a threat to get the new stadium. It doesn't seem the owners (Zigi Wilf and Alex Spanos) really want to move the franchises and moving is a last resort.

Quick, off the top of your head, tell me who the owner of the Jaguars is........... Times up. I bet you couldn't do it could you? The owner is Wayne Weaver and he's one of the more under the radar owners. There have been reports in the last couple years he was selling the team (a report in 08 got a lot of press he'd been in contact with billionaire Dean Metropolis about a deal) but nothings come of it.

I think if the downtown stadium does get built, the Jags would be the team that makes the most sense coming to LA. I don't feel the league can add another team, it's to watered down as it is, so that means moving an existing franchise.

Now about the name. The Los Angeles Jaguars? Do we have Jaguars out here? Probably just as many Jaguars as lakes so I think we're covered there.

Bill

NFL Lock Out

If the labor impasse between the players and owners doesn't get worked out and there is a lock out, I'm siding with the owners. Screw the players. Whether they like to hear it or not, players are a commodity, they come and go and there is ALWAYS someone younger, stronger, faster coming along that will replace them. Sorry to burst your bubble, but it's true.

I don't blame the players for wanting to make more money, but the reality is, take it or leave it. If they don't like the offer on the table, go play elsewhere. The Canadian Football league is there, as is the United Football League. Hell, I keep hearing about how Rugby is the second most popular sport in the world, go to New Zealand and play Rugby there for all I care. The point is, players have options. You don't like the offer from the NFL, leave, go to another league, or, god forbid, get a real job!

I'm under no allusion that the owners are ethical, honest and out for anyone but themselves, but we live in a capitalist society and these owners have spent BILLIONS of dollars of their own money, they can do whatever they want (within reason) with their teams. Players don't like it? Leave. You don't like it? Don't watch. It's as simple as that.

I hear friends of mine saying if there's a lock out they're going to "protest and not watch NFL football for 2 years". Good for you, you do that. I put the over/under on them coming back at 3 weeks..... Me? If there's a lockout, I'll wait it out, read a book, watch a few more college and high school football games and enjoy myself. When the season starts back up, I'll start following my team again. No biggie.

The NFL will go on. There may be a bump in the road, but guess what current NFL players? I see Cam Newton, Da'Quan Bowers, Nick Fairley, AJ Green, Patrick Peterson, Prince Amukamara, Blaine Gabbert and a whole host of other rookies dying to enter the league this year. Not to mention in the future such players as Andrew Luck, Matt Barkley, Trent Richardson, Terrelle Pryor, Vontaze Burflict coming the year after that. It's a never ending procession of talent. Here today, gone tomorrow. Hell, with the spotlight on signing day now, I'm already counting down the days till players such as James Wilder Jr enters the league, along with Jadeveon Clowney, De'Anthony Thomas (The Black Mamba!), Cyrus Kouandijio and Seantrel Henderson. Those are the names of tomorrow, and they're coming fast.

You don't like the deal, don't sign it. Find work elsewhere, I don't care.

Bill

Would You Do It?

With the impasse in the Albert Pujols negotiations, if you're the Angels would you make this deal?

Kendry Morales and Mike Trout for Pujols. Then assuming it'll take 10 years, $285 million (average of $28.5 per year making him the highest paid player) to make Albert happy.

Would you do this if you're the Angels?

Here's your Angels lineup:

Maicer Izturis

Bobby Abreu

Vernon Wells

Albert Pujols

Torii Hunter

Howie Kendricks

Jeff Mathias

Erick Aybar

Peter Bourjos

With a rotation of:

Weaver

Haren

Santana

Pineiro

Kazmir

You're giving up on a great young player in Morales and trading away the number 1 prospect in the minors in Trout (who realistically isn't going to help you for 2 years), but insert the best player in baseball and probably will still be 6 years from now. Angels would hope he doesn't fall off the map the last couple years of the contract while eating that money.

The question though is, would you do it?

Bill

Kendry Morales

Can someone help me out here? He broke his ankle last May and has been out since then. Supposedly he had a screw inserted in it.... I keep hearing "rumors"in the paper about "if he's back healthy", "lingering effects" and "when he's back at full speed" and stuff like that.

WTF?

I've had 3 broken ankles in my life. Two of them I was younger than Kendry, one I was older. With all 3 I was back playing basketball within 6 weeks and back at "full speed with no lingering effects" by 10 weeks.. Why isn't he heeled? He jumped and landed awkwardly on home plate, how much different can it be then me playing basketball, jumping and landing "awkwardly" on someone else's foot? It's not like he had a parachuting accident and shattered his fibia or some such injury like that....

We're now on 9 months since he broke it, I don't want nor need to hear that he's still not recovered. That's bullshit.

Man up bitch, it was a freaking broken ankle....

Bill

Black Mamba reconsidering?

Interesting football news over the weekend as Crenshaw High's De'Anthony Thomas took a recruiting visit to Oregon. The long time USC commit surprised many by his visit as he's been penciled in as a USC sign for quite a while. This coming so close to official letter of intent day (Wednesday, February 2nd) has the recruiting world buzzing.

Apparently Kiffen has told Thomas he'll play cornerback at USC and he's not happy about it as he'd still like a shot at running back. Could this be a ploy to put pressure on the Trojans by taking the recruiting trip?

With USC scholarship sanctions to go into effect next year (they've been appealing the ruling), this is a big story to follow. SC lost the top rated recruit in the country last year, when Seantrel Henderson changed his mind after the sanctions were announced and instead went to the "U". Can the Trojans afford to lose another top 10 recruit this year?

Bill