I think the NFL needs to tighten up their drug testing, because Chad OchoCinco is clearly high. He took the opportunity today to guarantee that the Bengals were going to make the playoffs. What? Which Bengals? Surely not the same ones we have seen the last couple of years. Marvin Lewis is still their coach, right? I can see how they might be better than they were last year, and I guess I could even see how they could make a go of it late in the season, but I certainly don’t see this as a guaranteed playoff team. There are holes all over the field, and the organization still seems like a sick one – they still have Lewis at the helm, after all. I’ll respectfully disagree with the artist formerly known as Johnson.
Sports Betting Section
MADDUX'S WINNING PICKS
MADDUX'S LIVE ODDS
SITE FEATURES
Tiger Woods went directly from Ohio, where he made the entire PGA his bitch yet again, to New York to play a practice round at Bethpage Black, the site of the U.S. Open in just under two weeks. This is seriously bad news for the rest of his opponents – it clearly shows that he is intensely focused ad ready to defend his title. Add in the fact that he’s obviously in top form, and you have the makings of a heavy favorite. There are few things better than watching him when he’s in the zone.
I want to weigh in on the whole Michael Vick thing, and I promise not to use any bad dog puns as I do so.
I have to admit that I don’t buy a lot of the arguments that are being made concerning Vick these days. The most common opinion in the media seems to be that he’s a bad, bad man who hasn’t yet done enough t earn another shot in the league. I don’t agree, and I think it’s a matter of perspective. I don’t for a second want to make you think that I condone what he did. I’m an animal lover and I’ve had lots of dogs in my life, so I think what he did is worse than terrible. Here’s the thing, though – he has spent time in prison. He was sentenced and he is almost done serving that sentence. I think that that has to mean that, provided he behaves like a responsible professional, he deserves anther chance to be one. There are a lot of guys in the league that have done a lot of really bad hings and have been given another chance – Leonard Little and Tank Johnson come to mind without even thinking about it. Vick’s crimes were worse than Johnson’s, but then so was the punishment. This idea that Vick should never be able to play again just doesn’t sit well with me. I don’t particularly respect the guy, and I’m not sure that I would want him on my team, but I believe absolutely that he deserves another shot. He should be on a short leash, and he should have to remain on his best behavior to stay in the league, but as long as he does that then I get very uncomfortable at the thought of the league making moral judgments that stretch well above and beyond the scope of the legal system. Lord knows that the league is powerful enough already without giving them total control over our thoughts and actions as well.
The late spring into the early summer is a great time for professional sports. Here are a few observations regarding some of what’s happening in the NHL, NBA, NFL, NASCAR, PGA and MLB.
There’s an NBA story that won’t get a lot of attention that deserves to – the Raptors have dropped the interim tag from coach Jay Triano and given him a three year extension. At first glance this might not make much sense – he was just 25-40 after taking over from Sam Mitchell. You need to look at two things, though – what he had to work with and how he finished. The team was a total mess last year between injuries, the whole Jermaine O’Neal debacle, the big trade at the deadline, and so on. The fact that he won even 25 games in those circumstances is a miracle. On top of that, down the stretch when nothing mattered and the team had every reason in the world to collapse, he got them to finish at 9-4. Granted, there were some soft opponents in there, but they did beat Orlando in Orlando. I’ve been partial to Triano for a long time – he’s a Canadian like me, and the only guy in recent memory who has had any success coaching our national team. He’s also one of the good guys in the sport – he’s intelligent, strategic, and he knows his stuff. Toronto desperately needs some stability and something that works, and that can start with a good coaching regime. Triano brings that. I was high on Toronto coming into this past season. I won’t be fooled again, but this certainly improves their chances next year.
For the first time in a lot of years I am probably not going to be sitting down to watch the draft today – too many things to see and do in New York to waste six hours in front of the TV. I like watching the draft, and there are things I will miss about it, but there are also a whole bunch of things I really won’t miss at all about watching the coverage or the accompanying analysis on other channels. Here are some of them:
As I have thought about the draft this year I have spent a lot of time thinking about Texas Tech receiver Michael Crabtree. His catch (if you don’t know what catch I am talking about then you don’t watch enough college football) is one of the most incredible things I have ever seen. Besides that, and all of his other highlight reel performances, there is a whole lot to make this guy compelling. He has the size and the hands to be an all-time great, but he doesn’t have the prototypical speed that receivers use to get away from corners. He comes from a system that was wildly productive, but his quarterback has been disregarded to the point of irrelevance because of the gimmicky nature of that offense. The stress fracture in his foot has limited the evaluation teams have done and have created some questions and uncertainty. Despite the questions, his ridiculously impressive list of accomplishments and obvious skill have him as the top receiver on virtually every list, but there seems to be decreasing confidence in the security of his position on top as time progresses – Jeremy Maclin is rocketing up many lists.
It’s always fun to look for the guys who are getting noticed in the draft process that certainly weren’t getting noticed before now – the guys who toil at obscure schools in obscure conferences. Here are five guys that are getting good buzz out of small schools this year. Telling that four of the five players on this list are corners – teams are absolutely starved for cornerbacks and the major conferences just haven’t come through with good prospects this year, so teams are looking further and further for opportunities.cause of small school corners that Dominique Rodger-Cromartie came out of Tennessee State and looks like a very legitimate pro. You may notice if you follow such things that I have left two of the bigger small school names off this list. Johnny Knox of Abilene Christian was the fastest wide receiver at the Combine, so he’s getting more than enough attention without me, and Rhett Bomar of Sam Houston State is a well known story. The former Oklahoma QB is also an idiot, and I try not to write about idiots more than I have to.
I won’t bore you with a complete mock draft, because the more picks a person makes the more variables, and the more chance they are really, really wrong. I will tackle the top ten picks, though. I think there will be some trade action in the top ten, but none has happened as I write this, so I won’t try to guess what might happen. I’ll also resist the temptation to go with what I think teams should do, and instead will try to go with what I think teams will do. For example, I think the Jags will pick Mark Sanchez if he is available, but I really, really don’t think that they should.
1. Detroit – Matthew Stafford, QB, Georgia – Anyone is okay for the Lions as long as it isn’t a wide receiver. That would just be bad karma. I’m not convinced that Stafford is a franchise QB, but the Lions seem to think he is. At the very least, he can’t be any worse than Joey Harrington.
2. St. Louis – Jason Smith, OT, Baylor – The Rams have all sorts of needs, but they need a tackle now that Orlando Pace has moved on.Smith and Eugene Monroe are neck and neck and either could go here, but Smith seems to have a bit more momentum at this point.
3. Kansas City – Aaron Curry, LB, Wake Forest – No team in history has ever registered fewer sacks in a season than the Chiefs did last year. Curry is a versatile defensive player who can make life uncomfortable for opposing quarterbacks. He’s by far the best defensive player on the board, so this is a no-brainer.
4. Seattle – Eugene Monroe, OT, Virginia – They need to protect Hasselbeck and his eventual replacement, so this makes sense. I could have seen them picking a QB here if one was worthy, but I don’t think they are convinced enough about Sanchez to pay him this kind of money.
5. Cleveland – Michael Crabtree, WR, Texas Tech – Eric Mangini is far from a genius, but he could look like one if he makes this pick and then does the right thing by keeping Braylon Edwards around. Those two could combine to be a truly terrifying duo, regardless of who is throwing to them.
6. Cincinnati – Andre Smith, OT, Alabama – So much for Smith’s freefall. He hasn’t been impressive at all since the season ended, but the game time tells a different story. Smith needs to protect the fragile Carson Palmer, and Smith is the best remaining. The Bengals aren’t afraid of bad attitudes, either.
7. Oakland – Jeremy Maclin, WR, Missouri – This probably isn’t Oakland’s biggest need. Bran Orakpo would make more sense in a lot of ways. I just can’t see Al Davis passing on a big, fast, impressive receiver like this. He’s a sucker for them, and he hasn’t had one in a while.
8. Jacksonville – Mark Sanchez, QB, Jacksonville – I hope I’m wrong here – I would much rather see Sanchez fall to San Francisco, Denver, or Washington and see the Jags fill one of their other big needs.
9. Green Bay – Aaron Maybin, DE, Penn State – The Packers could really use offensive line help, but they can get that later just as well as they can here unless one of the top tackles drop.Otherwise, they could use someone to anchor their defensive line, and I like Maybin better than B.J. Raji in terms of the upside and the amble involved. Besides, a DE is more interesting than a DT.
10. San Francisco – Robert Ayers, DE, Tennessee – The Niners would leap at either of the top two QBs if they fell down here, and I can see scenarios where Stafford might. If not then I look for them to address their pass rush, and Ayers has been climbing boards quickly since the end of the season.
I’m no NFL general manager or scout, and I don’t have access to a tiny fraction of the data that they do. That doesn’t stop me from getting hunches about players in the draft, though. I can’t pretend to be always accurate, but I have my moments both good and bad – I had a strong sense that Robert Gallery wasn’t going to pan out, but I thought the same about Matt Ryan. My hunches are imprecise science, but then so is the draft. At the very least I have about the same track record this year as the Lions. Better, even – I wasn’t fooled by Joey Harrington. Here’s a look at four likely first rounders this year who I just can’t seem to warm up to:
Matthew Stafford – Let’s start right at the top. I know Stafford has all the measurables, and that scouts have been drooling over him since before the season. I just can’t reconcile what everyone says with what I have seen when I have watched Georgia play. He can be extremely impressive at times, but he can also look rattled and out of his element. I think back most to the Georgia Tech game. The Bulldogs should have won very easily, but the Tech clearly got into Stafford’s head and rattled him. That was just one example of what I feel about Stafford – some guys can get more out of their team than they should be able to. Stafford never seemed able to get his team to live up to its massive potential.
Betting News
Online Sportsbooks
