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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Every week the Browns’ story just keeps getting crazier and crazier. This is better than fiction. Two more twists in this twisted tale. First, linebacker D’Qwell Jackson has been placed on the IR. He’s one of the few highlights on this team defensively. He leads the team in tacklesths year, and topped the whole league in that category last year. The Browns’ defense was already nothing to write home about, and this certainly won’t help. The other news is that Cleveland has been overrun with a flu bug, and it has affected six starters so far, including nose tackle Shaun Rogers, one of the other few defensive highlights. The players – 12 in total – missed practice on Wednesday, and could miss more – especially if it turns out to be H1N1. This puts a serious kink in the team’s preparations for Sunday’s game against the Giants. Given that they were already in deep in that game this is bad news for them – and entertaining for us.

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It has been more than 60 hours since it happened, but it still hasn’t entirely sunk in – Michigan is going to the tournament. Probably. Hopefully. Fingers crossed. For the first time in a long, long, long time. It would obviously help if we won a conference tournament game or two, but I think it would be a massive travesty for us to get bounced now given what we have accomplished so far and given the last win at Minnesota. Now I’m nervous. Not about how the team will do, mind you – I’m just thrilled we are there this year, so I’ll take whatever I can get. I’m nervous about how to act when your team is in the tournament. I was a much younger man the last time the Wolverines danced, so I feel lost.

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1. I think that I’m not yet convinced that Chase Daniel is the clear Heisman leader that people say he is. Sure, the stats are compelling – he’s top five in the country in completion percentage, passing yards, yards per attempt, yards per game, and touchdowns. He’s only been sacked once, and he’s thrown just one pick. On top of all that, he completed 20 in a row against Buffalo. Here’s the thing, though – he’s only played one BCS team – Illinois – and his stats in that game were significantly worse than the rest – his completion percentage was 25 points worse, his yards per attempt were much worse, and both the pick and the sack came in that game. It’s not exactly like the Illini are known for their stout defense, either. Don’t get me wrong, I like him and his team. I just want to hold judgment until he gets through his tough stretch of next four games – Nebraska, Oklahoma State, Texas, Colorado. That’s a much better test of where he is at than what we have seen so far.

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1. Notre Dame is awful. I was pretty sure that the experts who were saying that Notre Dame was going to win nine or ten games this year were crazy. Now I know for sure. They rallied to beat San Diego State, but that’s not much of an accomplishment when you are playing one of the worst teams in division one and you are favored by 21.5 points. The Irish looked confused, lethargic, unprepared and very predictable. They were sloppy, and they got lucky. Charlie Weis is a terrible coach, and I have no faith in his ability to turn ths mess around.

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It’s time to move on from the Olympics and get back into what matters – football. We’ll find lots of different ways to look at things in the coming weeks, but to ease back into it lets take a quick survey of some of the interesting stories out there concerning the most over-watched and over-hyped position on the field – the quarterbacks. I’m interested in these stories partly because of the impact they could have on the field, and partly because the betting public will almost certainly overcompensate for the situations.

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Sportsbook.com has become the first book to release NFL season totals for next year. I’m not generally a fan of these bets, and especially not in the NFL when the possible range is so small because of the number of games they play. That doesn’t mean that there isn’t anything to learn from the bets, though. By looking at the numbers and the juice required we can get a good sense of how oddsmakers are feeling about some teams. If any are a surprise then we have lots of time to figure out if they seem right or wrong. Here are the strongest opinions based on the first numbers posted:

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