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2
Mar
2010
Oh yeah, the combine is happening
These stopwatches mean millions of dollars to players at the NFL Combine (Photo: Ben Liebenberg/NFL.com)
You’ll have to forgive us for our recent lapse in NFL coverage … we were swept up in Winter Olympic fever for the past few weeks, and kind of forgot that the NFL Scouting Combine started last week. And yeah, we actually had something better to do than watch a bunch of grown men run around in their skivvies. So sue us.
Otherwise known as the “underwear Olympics”, the Combine is the annual meat market where NFL teams poke and prod at the latest round of prospects like so much cattle, sizing up their chances of success at the next level. It’s where Wonderlics, route trees and body lean become the talk of the day. A place where a mediocre player can rise from obscurity with a 4.3 40-yard dash time, and where an all-American LB can tumble down the draft charts because he’s a few inches too short.
As you might be able to surmise from our tone, we don’t put as much stock in the combine as some others. I mean, it’s a useful tool to get an up-close look at these athletes, who teams are about to invest millions of dollars in … but it should really only be one piece of the larger puzzle. How someone performs on an indoor track in a sterilized environment should not be viewed as a direct reflection of how they will perform on Sunday. Sure, there are some physical tools that you simply can’t teach, and certain teams (ie., the Raiders) are always going to take a chance on gifted athletes, whether they can actually play football or not. But if a kid is ranked in your top 10 at the end of the college season, after being a playmaker his entire career, there’s simply no way a slow 3-cone drill time should drop him off of your board.
DTs Gerald McCoy of Oklahoma (left) and Ndomukong Suh of Nebraska are 2 of the top prospects in this year's draft (Photo: Ben Liebenberg/NFL.com)
I’ve watched a few hours of the combine over the past 2 days, and I guess I’ll have to leave it to the Kipers and Mayocks of the world, who make their living off of this event. And don’t get me wrong, you can definitely gain some affirmation on your feelings about a player one way or another from these workouts – and especially the interviews. I just feel that often, too much value is placed on these measurements over actual gameday performance.
And with that, I leave you with a few Combine-related links:
- Tim Tebow’s 2010 Combine performance set to Iron Maiden [Deadspin]
- NFL Network’s Rich Eisen prepares to run the 40-yard dash [NFL.com]
- *UPDATE* Clemson RB CJ Spiller’s blazing 40-yard dash of 4.27 seconds … actually clocked in at 4.37 seconds. Whoops.
AFTER THE JUMP, WATCH RICH EISEN RUN THE 40-YARD DASH … IN A SUIT
17
Nov
2009
Pats Paste Patsies (and the parents engage in a Smerlas campaign)
And here we thought that Bill Belichick was having problems. Over the weekend, former Patriots’ players played in a charity basketball game with some high schoolers. This feel good story quickly turned bad, though, when the Pats’ squad started roughing up their counterparts from Nashoba Regional High School. Now, the parents of the teens are fighting back, the police are involved, and one former Patriot, Garin “Gameday” Veris, may even lose his job over it is on the defensive over it. If you want to see video on the story, you’ll have to go here.
At the center of the bru-ha-ha is this man and his charity, All Pro Productions, who arranged the game:
Fred Smerlas
Smerlas, who as evidenced by the above photo was either a wrestler or a super hero in high school, apparently knows how to fight when he wants to:
Smerlas fought in high school. Smerlas’ charity team fights high schoolers now. Coincidence? Or culture of violence? You decide!
You may only recognize Smerlas when you see him wearing his 'stache.
Photos from www.coachpass33.com and http://graphics.fansonly.com/photos/schools/bc/genrel/auto_action/FredSmerlas.jpg
17
Oct
2009
Bertinelli sacks Romo
This is getting out of hand. First, her “sister” MacKenzie Phillips went on Oprah to drop this little nugget: she had a consensual, incestual relationship with her father. Now, little sis Valerie Bertinelli is making headlines of her own (is there some kind of One Day at a Time DVD box set that is for sale that I don’t know about: why are these people getting interviews?) by ripping Tony Romo:
What’s next, the red head mom on One Day reveals she isn’t actually a red head? Romo, of course, had nothing to do with the offending video, which was actually a Burger King creation.
A bad season just got a little worse for Tony Romo. What’s ironic here, of course, is that Marion Barber is the real victim: I mean, who talks like that?
12
Sep
2009
Swinging bachelor Cris Collinsworth, circa 1984
This video has been making the rounds. Troubling, at best.
12
Sep
2009
Troy Polamalu’s Head & Shoulders commercial is painfully dumb
Great player, absolutely terrible commercial.
This will play 240 times every Sunday–enjoy it.
3
Sep
2009
Thursday Round-Up: Vick eligible? Top-selling NFL jerseys; Romo’s new woman
America has spoken. Favre and Vick top jersey sales
Lots going on this week as we prepare for the final pre-season games, roster cuts, fantasy football drafts, and very soon, the start of the NFL season. Time to get fired up, folks!
Here is your Thursday Round-Up:
- Michael Vick likely to be eligible for Week 1, and is reportedly meeting with Roger Goodell today [NFL Fanhouse]. Wow, really? Goodell sure seems to be caving quickly on this one. Is our society’s tolerance for mistakes and capacity for forgiveness this great? Or do we just have a short memory when it comes to our “heroes”? Probably the latter, huh?
- Along those lines, CNBC put together a list of the top-selling jerseys in the NFL. Brett Favre is #1. Michael Vick is #4. Self respect did not make the list.
-
Candice Crawford will now distract Romo from his football playing duties
The Detroit Lions won the Kevin O’Connell sweepstakes, signing him to back up Matt Stafford and Daunte Culpepper. [Yahoo!]
- In case you care, Peter King gives his 2009 NFL predictions, with projected records for each team, along with his playoff forecast. SPOILER ALERT! – he has the Bears vs Patriots in the Super Bowl. [SportsIllustrated]
- Tony Romo’s got a hot new squeeze, and it’s former miss Missouri Candace Crawford, who also happens to be the sister of teen hearthrob Chase Crawford. [US Weekly]. And I really couldn’t care less … just an excuse to post a picture of a hot chick.
UPDATE: The Winnepeg Sun says it was a rambling internet video post by Pacman that caused them to re-consider:
19
Aug
2009
Wednesday Wrap: Shaq VS Big Ben, the new Sexy Rexy, and He Who Shall Remain Nameless
Rex Ryan continues to paw at the sleeping bear, taking ill-advised swipes at Bill Belichick
Well, we all know what the biggest news of the week is. And we’re still not talking about it. Eff that disingenuous prick … there’s sill an 60% chance he’s going to retire again anyway.
Here are your Wednesday Links!:
- The folks at Kissing Suzy Kolber adequately capture our feelings about the one we shall not name [KSK].
- Jets coach Rex Ryan just can’t seem to keep his big yapper shut [NJ.com]. At least he’s focusing the team’s energy on such important endeavors as the King Ugly competition. My money’s on big Rex himself.
- Ben Roethlisberger competed with Shaquille O’Neal in the premier of “Shaq VS” on ABC last night [LA Times], and I guess it was pretty entertaining. I liked watching Shaq go through combine drills with Mike Mayock, but it lost me down the stretch. Big Ben ended up winning the final event, and getting to wear one of Shaq’s championship rings as the prize. Watch it yourself on YouTube.
- On a completely unrelated-to-football note, does anyone else think the Foot Locker “Hyperizing” track from that commercial is really, really good? Video after the jump.
27
Jul
2009
Clinton Portis Will Haunt Your Dreams
There’s a lot of big stuff going on in NFL news today … namely that Michael Vick was reinstated by Roger Goodell and Plaxico Burress still looks like he’s heading to jail.
But when we saw this picture of Redskins RB Clinton Portis (above), it shook us to the core. Suddenly, all other news seemed trivial compared to the paralyzing, horriffic fear of having our brains eaten in our sleep by this blonde devil-creature. It’s all we could do to get out of the fetal position and crawl to the keyboard to make this post.
Clearly, there is only one way to handle this: don’t go to sleep. And if you see Portis on the street … KILL IT!!!
24
Jul
2009
Friday Round-Up: NFL Draft Goes Primetime, the T.O. Show Sucks, You Wish You Were Matt Stafford
Happy belated 4th of July! Especially to the blond in the pink top.
Things have sort of gotten away from us here at ReadandReact since around the 4th of July, when a blur of whiskey, fireworks and real life responsibilities stepped in to interrupt your regularly scheduled pointless NFL banter. And for that, we’d like to apologize.
But let’s not kid ourselves. July is a particularly painful time for NFL news (we’re getting into Fantasy preview territory now), and since we won’t waste space on that attention whore who shall remain nameless, it’s been a little light on fodder for our cynical rants of late.
We’ll try to pick things up now that we’re heading into training camp, and there might be some semblance of actual football news. Or not. I mean, it’s not like we’re getting paid for this. Get off our backs, okay?!?
Here’s your Friday Round-Up:
- NFL Draft Expands to 3 days in 2010: First round to be broacast live on Thursday in primetime. Second and Third rounds Friday night. Fourth-Seventh on Saturday. Hmmmm … so entire weekends will no longer go to waste? Mixed feelings on this one, I gotta say.
- Good for Matt Stafford: I have no idea where the banner photo above is from (apparently taken on or around the 4th of July), but it’s nice to see the #1 draft pick is enjoying himself before his first NFL training camp begins. I mean, it’s all downhill for the poor bastard in Detroit.
- The T.O. Show premiered on VH1 this week, and it was just about the steaming pile we expected it to be (see this spot-on review from the Boston Herald). The latest “reality show” addition to the VH1 non-music video stable is a badly staged outlet for Owens’ unchecked ego, and it succeeds in revealing T.O. as a bigger child off the field than even imaginable. He spends most of the show shirtless and being scolded by his publicists/friends/handlers, Mo’ and Kita (neither of whom, incidentally, were responsible for the famous “25 million reasons to live” quote during the T.O. overdose scare of 2006, like I had hoped). They nag, he rolls his eyes and flexes … the highlight of the show is waiting to see whether or not Terrell ends up nailing his realtor.
Watch the awful highlight clip after the jump, and save yourselves from watching the show.
13
Jun
2009
Texans WR David Anderson is milking the Conan String Dance thing for all it’s worth
Texans WR David Anderson does the Conan String Dance
Houston Texans’ WR David Anderson is not exactly a household name. A 7th round pick of the Texans in 2006, he’s caught 32 passes for 399 yards, and a whopping 3 TD’s in his career. But this past season, he gained minor recognition for performing Conan O’Brian’s string dance in after one of his rare visits to the endzone:
While announcer Gus Johnson was not impressed, Conan not only saw it, but made mention of it on his show following the game, even giving Anderson instruction on how to better perform the dance (NBC has since pulled the video from YouTube).
NFL FanHouse points out that David Anderson is milking this one for all it’s worth, and he’s just released a ridiculous string dance instructional/fitness video. Honestly, I didn’t even make it past the 1:00 minute mark of that awful thing, so you’ll have to tell me if it got any better.
You should probably just watch the Conan O’Brien vs Steven Colbert String Dance-Off … that’s way funnier, anyway.
