Maddux Sports Blog

Three big personnel moves occurred in the NFL yesterday, and each of them is worth a discussion:

Ronnie Brown – The Dolphins’ impressive but fragile running back has been put on the IR, and that means he’s out for the season. This time it his right foot that is the problem. Back in 2007 it was his right leg. Maybe he should just amputate that leg and start over again. Needless to say, this is a big blow for an already fragile team. Only three teams have run better than the Dolphins this year, while only two teams have passed worse. Add in Brown’s impact as one of the only players in the league who can effectively run a wildcat and you have a big hole. They aren’t totally without hope – they still have Ricky Williams and he has looked good this year. Williams is a far more straight ahead, less versatile back than Brown is, though, and it’s doubtful that Williams will be able to lead a similarly effective running attack – if he can even stay healthy for the rest of the season.

Ryan Fitzgerald – Perry Fewell needed to make an impact quickly as the new head coach of the Bills, and he found the easiest way to do it – he changed his quarterback. The ineffective Trent Edwards has been benched in favor of the ineffective Ryan Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald has had significant play in three games so far this year, and the team has earned two of their three wins in that time. He has thrown twice as many touchdowns as interceptions, and has completed less than half his passes, so it’s not a perfect solution. The Bills have been a truly terrible passing team this year, though, so it won’t hurt. None of it gives me any reason to even consider backing the Bills now or into the future.

Bruce Gradkowski – It took far too long, but the Raiders have finally come to their senses. They have benched JaMarcus Russell and given Gradkowski the reins. It’s not just a fleeting thing, either – coach Cable says that Gradkowski will be given a real chance to settle in and play. Gradkowski is not a great QB and he is in a brutal situation, so this isn’t going to make a significant change for the team. It still was the only thing to do. Russell has been absolutely terrible, and he is making absolutely no progress while he is playing. He probably won’t make any progress when he isn’t playing, either, but at least he won’t be making more truly terrible plays and crushing his final shreds of confidence and self respect. I can’t imagine that the team will be anything other than relieved by the change – it might even give them a boost. The good news is that Gradkowski barely has to do anything to be just as good as Russell.

The Bills did the inevitable thing today when they fired head coach Dick Jauron. He was just 3-6 this year and 24-33, in his career with the team after three straight 7-9 seasons. Jauron had no long term future with the team, and he had played his last ace when he fired offensive coordinator Turk Schonert right before the season started, so it was just a matter of time. There are reports that Jauron and the team were both caught off-guard by the move, but I don’t see how they could be. The fourth quarter against Tennessee last weekend was quite possibly the worst quarter of football a team has played all year. After they had played a solid game to tie it at 17 through three quarters they allowed 24 unanswered points. 14 of those points came from two interceptions returned for TDs, and in both cases the receivers did a pathetic job of earning their money on the plays. It was a clear sign that the coach had lost the team, and the only thing that made sense at this point was to make a change and get a head start on next year.

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Wow, Cleveland is bad. So, so, so bad. Brady Quinn isn’t the answer. Is there an answer?

It was interesting watching the debut of John Wall in Kentucky tonight. It was pretty obvious why people are so excited about him – there is a lot of talent there. He turned it over too much, and he and fellow super-frosh Eric Bledsoe are going to have to learn to share the back court better, but he played well, and he scored the winning basket at the end of the game. He’s going to be a good one. That being said, that was one scary game from Kentucky. Miami of Ohio is a decent team with a very nice incoming freshman class, but they clearly aren’t of the caliber of Kentucky, and they were 17.5 point underdogs. Despite that, they were the better team for much of the game, and could very easily have pulled it out. Miami led for more of the game, and for much of the game they seemed to want it more. Kentucky simply needs to be much, much better to play with the big boys. They have a few easy game to work out the kinks, but a deadly four day stretch at the beginning of December in which they play UNC and UConn looms. They need to be much better than they were tonight if they want to survive that duo of potential disaster.

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1. How in the world does anyone lose to Washington right now? Denver should be ashamed. It’s a sign of just how good Kyle Orton has been this year – the team self-destructed when he was hurt and the terrible Chris Simms had to take over.

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I’m not sure that anyone out there is still cutting Jay Cutler any slack, but anyone who still is needs to stop it immediately after last night. There are a lot of excuses for why he is struggling – the team has no running game of note, their offensive line is deeply troubled, and they can’t seem to consistently snap the ball. None of those can account for why Cutler is leading the league in interceptions, though, or why the Chicago offense no longer seems to exist. A couple of Cutler’s interceptions yesterday weren’t entirely his fault, but at least two – including the last one – definitely were. Cutler insists on trying to force his passes into places where he should know better than to try anymore, and he is getting locked n on a receiver and not looking past him – even when clearly better options exist elsewhere. We knew that there was going to be an adjustment period for Cutler in Chicago, but this is way beyond acceptable. This year is lost, and next year he very likely will have to get comfortable with a new coach and a new system. The guy already clearly doesn’t seem to adjust well to change, so it’s hard to be optimistic about next year, either. It’s obviously way too early to say that the Cutler trade was a mistake, or that it won’t work out, but you definitely could look at this as a warning against elevating a player to a level that he isn’t deserving of. The interceptions have reached a new level of ridiculousness this year, but Cutler has always forced his passes and turned it over way too much, so why did people assume that he would suddenly be a superstar when you put him on a team with a weaker offense line and significantly worse receivers?

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It was a great day at the Breeders’ Cup on Saturday. Zenyatta’s win in the Classic was, without exaggeration, one of the top five racing moments of my life – and I have seen a lot of them. She is truly an all-time great. She should be the horse of the year in my book without question – and that’s no insult to Rachel Alexandra. Rachel won a Triple Crown race and beat older horses, but Zenyatta’s win over older horses was far more impressive, and it came in the richest race in North America – one a female horse had never won. The field in Zenyatta’s race was far deeper than Rachel’s as well. I’d be fine with a split award this year, but if there is one winner it has to be Zenyatta.

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1. There isn’t a game on the schedule in which the two teams both need to win more than the Washington – Atlanta game. The Redskins need to stop the bleeding and get the focus off of what a circus their team has become. The Falcons need to stop the bleeding after their tremendous early promise was derailed bytwo losses in a row. 5-3 isn’t a bad place to be, but 4-4 would be a disaster.

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I am impressed to the point of being shocked by the start that Brandon Jennings has gotten off to. In three games for a reasonably crappy Bucks team the point guard has averaged 22 points, .3 assists, and four boards. I have only seen him play part of one game, but he looked the furthest thing from a rookie point guard. The game I saw them play was against Chicago. I am a huge Derrick Rose guy – couldn’t be a bigger believer. That being said, Jennings flat out outplayed him in the game. I was very skeptical of Jennings ‘ decision to play in Europe instead of college, and the reports coming out of Europe weren’t universally great, but early indications are that he could be a serious draft steal. The downside to his early strong play in my mind is that it further legitimizes his decision to skip college and turn pro in Europe. If it continues to turn out so well for him then other players will surely follow, and that will only hurt college basketball. I’d obviously rather not have that happen.

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1. Will Denver ever lose? If they are going to do it then this is a good place for it to happen – in Baltimore. The Ravens have been impressive in a lot of ways despite their 3-3 record. Really a few breaks either way and these teams could easily have the opposite records. I have a feeling that whichever team wins this one will really have proven something in the process.

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Yesterday I touched on how uneven and uninspiring so many teams have been in the NFL has been this year. It’s really striking how large the gap is between the good teams and the not-so-good ones – bigger than usual, I think. As I was thinking about that earlier I was particularly struck by the sad state of quarterbacking in the league. There are always some QB problems, but I’m not sure that there is also this many teams in such a hopeless situation. Here’s a look at the worst offenders:

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