Pages

Friday, December 28, 2012

The Injustice of Tim Tebow...

What a complete joke New York has made of their franchise.  The fact Timothy Tebow did not get the opporunity to start the last two weeks (or any of the previous 14 games they started Sanchez) is a sign that Rex Ryan is not only an idiot, but has early signs of dementia or alzheimers.  Tebow was the main reason the Jets lost to the Broncos on MNF a year ago.  Tebow is a huge reason the Broncos made the playoffs last season.  Say what you want about the improvement of the team with Manning, but Tebow is a 10-6 playoff QB on this team.  Manning is just that much better.  There is no denying that the Broncos are better off with Manning, but what about the other 31 teams in the NFL, let me break it down.

I will immediately right off certain teams and in no particular order they are:
(8)New England, Indianapolis, Washington, Pittsburgh, NY Giants, New Orleans, Denver and Green Bay.  These teams all have franchise QBs and are already assembled to win. 
Other teams I'd eliminate and reasoning:
(4)Houston, Baltimore, Chicago & Atlanta: Solid and balanced teams already.  Why change offense.
(4)Cincy, Detroit, Dallas, Arizona:  Great RECs on every team and need a gun slinging QB that can get it around the field.  Don't know if any of their QBs are that special though.  They also lack great run blocking and great RBs.
(1)San Diego: I hate Rivers but he is a good QB on a bad team.  Has been trying to do too much.  Loss of #1 REC hurt him big time.
(2)St. Louis and Minnesota: Turf is no help to a QB that likes to run and is slow since the defense is just as fast.
(4)SF, Seattle, Tampa Bay and Carolina: I think Tebow would thrive as a great back-up to these athletic QBs, but this is about a starter and a team that really needs one rather than missing other parts.

Good fits but.... Miami, , Tenn and Cleveland-All have young QBs they believe in.  I wouldn't make changes if I was a GM covering his butt, but Miami sold an extra like 10k tix for the Broncos game Tebow started.  Miami is a fringe team that could use him, but they drafted Tannehill too high to go away from him.  Cleveland is a question mark.  They have an old rookie and a back-up that plays the same shitty football.  If McDaniels returns home, he may build an offense and buzz in Cleveland by going after Tebow.
That leaves Philly, NY Jets, KC, Oakland, Jacksonville, and Buffalo.

Philly is making a change at coach and honestly think they should at QB too.  Foles sucks.  He is mistake prone and a Romo or Sanchez type.  They have two solid RBs and RECs that get vertical.  That sounds like a Tebow offense to me.
KC and Buffalo are almost the same as Philly but KC really lacks a playmaking REC once Bowe is gone.  You don't need that with Tebow.  Baldwin may become a player running a 9 constantly.  Awesome run game having Charles with a touch of a healthy Hillis.  I think Philly is a better fit but both franchises could use Tebow.  Especially Buffalo.  They have little fan support after years in the doghouse.  Instead of a smart QB that thinks he can throw the ball.  Give the ball to Spiller, Jackson and Choice with Tebow and throw it to Stevie.  Success!!!
Jets, they pass block poorly.  They are a grinder team.  They lack good RECs for short passes.  Send Hill deep and let it be another GT connection like he had with DT.  Oh wait, for some reason Ryan wasn't fired mid-season like the Broncos did with McDumby.  Woody shoulda fired Ryan and played a Jerry Jones type role.  You can  bet Dallas will get rid of Romo if he loses this weekend.
Oakland is awful but they have an offense with fast RECs and if healthy a good RB corp.  The misdirection a DHB could make that the Broncos did with Royal, brilliant. 
Finally, Jacksonville.  Jacksonville will become LA's team or London's sooner than later.  Tebow would save it.  He would put asses in that stadium and they should just pay MJD and use him.  Unfortunately their HC was ATLs OC and likes to throw the ball around.  Even though he is a Gator grad, he likes to throw the ball and was doing so this year even before MJD got hurt.  Unless Mularkey can change his offense to Tebow, this will be like the Jets situation.

Ranking teams if they change their offense to suit his strengths: 1. Jacksonville 2. Philly 3. KC 4. Buffalo 5. Cleveland

Last, Tebow has one more shot and one more year before he collects his pention.  If a team doesn't trade for him  that wants to utilize him and he just gets crap for offers after sitting the bench after a trade next year, quit football.  Tebow can make so much more money and make an even bigger impact outside the game.  I hope he can do it as a QB though because he helped me see that their is HOPE, BELIEF and a GREATER side and Tebow is hard working and deserves his shot.   Get him back down to about 230, 225.  Don't let him hit the weights hard, but instead work on flexibility, his drop back and don't mess with his mechanics.  Let him throw how he does but work on his footwork and he will be great.  Tebow for Comeback Player of the Year in 2013.

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

CU hires MacAttack

It was a crazy last few weeks for CU football fans, followers, former players, current players, staff, etc.  First the team has the worst season ever.  Loses every game in Folsom for the the first time ever.  Poor results and the "trajectory" of the program shows the AD and others in CU that they need to go with a new staff and Embree is fired.  It has hints or racism thrown out by it's former coach and Coach Mac rather than saying, hey, you were the worse head coach CU has ever had and things were getting worse and not better and no signs showed towards improvement and we couldn't wait around another year and continue to HOPE, we needed to go FORWARD and CHANGE.  LOL, Obama headliners thrown out in one sentence, pat on back.  Then the Butch Jones dilemma, former players bitching and then all quiet on the Rocky Mountain front and then welcome Coach Mac (the real Mac since the other coach was Really Coach Mc).

I like the hire for a few reasons.
1.  The guy wanted to be here and wanted a bigger challenge
2.  He seems to have big aspirations on rebuilding the prominence that CU had.
3.  He didn't talk about it being his dream job, so I believe he has aspirations to make the program so good he gets to coach in most conferences dream job, the SEC where he is from.  Anyone think it would be ironic if he took over for Butch Jones in 3 years at Tennessee? :)
4.  He wants to run an offense that isn't old and stagnant in college football, the Pistol.  The pistol is a combination of Spread and the Ace formation in my opinion.  Running is key but instead of HAVING to have a speedster at QB, you just need a good blocking scheme and a back that can make one cut and go like in the zone-read running game. 
5.  He has actually started from scratch rather than taking over successful programs like Butch Jones did.
6.  He has coached at different levels under great coaches and been recognized for being amongst the best assistants in the country. 
7.  He has CA ties and emphasizes the important of CA here.  I love Colorado.  I am a Colorado native, but the football played here compared to CA isn't close.  The athletes here are not the same.  I believe there are a handful of guys that can help contribute to a CU anually but CUs best players in their history tend to be from out of state.  And a lot of their best players came from Cali.
8.  His former teams two losses came in close games against Stanford and Texas A & M, both Top 10 football teams this year.  I can not do anything but applaud that.  I would have supported Embree staying another year but his team wasn't competitive most of the time. 

I believe CU has more to work with and with the facility improvements ahead, I believe will continue to have even greater things to work with.  Their facilities currently are not great but they aren't crap like they were compared to the Big XII powers.  CU is going to get better and I believe the second choice (or however far down he was) will prove to be a great choice. 

Monday, December 10, 2012

Drinking and playing sports...

Most people enjoy a drink here and there.  Some enjoy a few too many here and then there.  The question is, even in that altered state of brain activity time, do you go the intelligent route or do you make a dumb decision?  I have made that dumb decision probably a handful of times in my life.  One of those times, I was not fit to drive due to lack of sleep and too much to drink and the other few times was an on the edge of I knew I was close but was it worth it to take the chance?  Fortunately I did not hurt anyone else and cause years of damage to them and myself and didn't do anything to aler the fact that maybe I was close.   I believe most people that drive drunk are in the gray area of not knowing whether they should or shouldn't. Having 10 years of drinking (okay add 2) under my belt, I can say, don't even question it, don't do it. Others don't give a shit and feel they have not had issues before and feel they "drive better drunk". I've heard this and while I see that most drunk drivers drive slower, your mind is not there to be doing anything but stumbling around the bar acting like an idiot. At least you don't have a 1/2 ton to 4 ton weapon of destruction behind you. Plus, the cost even without an accident being at laest $8k, that should be a huge deterrent alone.

Now, at the age of 31, I'd rather sleep in my car (keys in the trunk of course due to the DUI laws of CO), do the call of shame and have my wife or family member pick me up or honestly, I'd know if I am driving and someone else didn't offer, I better be my Designated Driver and not even get to the question mark zone.  It's not worth it.

I find the fact professional athletes that make at least a quarter million a year, and can get free rides home because the league and teams have a service to do so, decide to take their lives and others lives at risk, completely ridiculous.  I can tell you the last two weeks hopefully have opened some eyes amongst professional athletes that were more concerned about getting questioned for calling a free ride service early in the morning instead of what Josh Brent decided to do and cost the life of his friend and teammate Jerry Brown.  And if you are so concerned, it's not like you can't call another service and use your own money.  $80 to me when I made those decisions was a TON of money.  $80 to a professional athlete is probably equivalent to $5 to one of us.  You would rather have it in your pocket, but if you lose it, so be it.  Josh Brent has to live with his decision for the rest of his life.  I believe like last weeks homicide/suicide involving Javon Belcher, it will make an impact on enough people to make changes in some athletes and people's lives, but it will never solve the problem and that is life.  No matter what we do or see or try to learn from, we are human, we make mistakes and they get repeated.  My hopes are enough people can point to an instance like this to alter mistakes they have made before or would have made in the future.

Thursday, December 6, 2012

CU football and it's continuing downward spiral...

What has happened to the University of Colorado?  I grew up watching them.  I had the pleasure of being able to see them rekindle some success in the early 2000s while my best friend/brother-in-law played for them in college.  Colorado was a place to go to coach football and was a Top 25 program.  It was a place that the location sold itself to recruits since most had not seen the beauty of a place like CO. The tradition of a strong program and national recognition was known by any possible recruit born until about 1990.  But for those born after that, when those kids got into middle school and high school, they saw something else.  I coached those ages in high school football and wrestling.  All I heard was smack talk about CU.  Nothing about what they had accomplished even in the early 2000s because they were still in elementary.  The downward spiral started shortly after the Big XII Championship game:

-CU hosts recruits a week after winning the Big XII title.  A party occured, like had been occuring since the inception of college, alcohol and sex became part of society.  That is before any of our time that is on the internet I assume.  A girl that has been known to host these parties and has a punch bowl of condoms has a sketchy story of rape by members of the team.  No one is formally charged.  CU is put through the ringer for years because of it though.  She gets a whole bunch of unwarranted money in a settlement.
-A female kicker that wasn't any good makes allegations with no formal charges brought against a CU player.  This player she had had relationships with previously (but no means no if it is true) but still no charges.  This is in 2004. 

These were the main two things that started this spiral.

In between this and after this, CU began struggling on the field and had a losing season in 2003, then showed they could compete in a weak North Division Big XII but had no chance against the South getting handled in two consecutive Big XII Championships.  With a lack of leadership being cited and too many black eyes, Dick Tharp was replaced by Mike Bohn as AD.  Shortly after a 70-3 loss and weeks after upping Barnett's contract, Mike Bohn decides he wants his guy and to get away from the cloud that had been created since that night in 2001.

He brought in Hawk Love and from the first game, Hawk love took a big crap Montana State style.  Hawkins did not know how to coach "Big XII football" or big boy "Division I football" and should have coached "intramurals brotha".  He lasted an extra year and his teams were like someone with PE (premature ej... you get it), they do well and surprise their lover once in a while but most of the time it's only a thrill for themselves and it leaves the other searching for better.  Finally after 5 years, Hawkins is fired.

One thing done right in that time was CU announcing the switch to the Pac 12.  The Big XII looked to be crumbling and even though it lasted and is okay, CU had facilities, alumni and were more suited for the Pac 12 conference.  The hire made by Bohn of Jon Embree was simply a stop gap to keep people interested in the program with hopes he would surprise us.  CU did not have the money or couldn't hope for a person to turn around the program, so they went with the former Buffs and former coaching greats choices.  It blew up in their face with two seasons worse than the Fairbanks era of the early 80s.  I for one believe Embree and members of his staff are solid coaches but they all needed more time at a higher position before coming to a Top 3 BCS conference school.  It showed so badly the last two seasons.

The search now is a hit or Bohn is fired and who else out of the group.  CU has a donor that is worth billions that is tired of losing.  He and Bohn courted a man with bigger aspirations, but Butch Jones doesn't want to start from scratch in a tough conference and was looking for bigger.  My guess is he is Tennessee's next head coach and if not, he'll get a shot at a bigger than Purdue Big X school or other top BCS school next year.  Jones will make the same amount of money CU offered or more.  CU is going to have to take a chance with a coach without years of experience or from a smaller conference, go after a big time coordinator from a power school that has been super succcessful or go after a person with character issues that you know would bring some buzz.  Either way, let's hope whoever it is, he's successful and we start climbing some of the Rocky Mountains instead of being buried underneath them.