Odds and Sods

Early in the third quarter of today’s Pats-Jets game, Chad Pennington limped off the field with an ankle injury.  After Pennington left the field, second-year QB of the future Kellen Clemens came onto the field.  Having made only 2 pass attempts the previous season, Jets fans acknowledged his first meaningful series by cheering for him when he came onto the field, and showered him with another cheer following his first NFL completion.

Rather than praising this or simply letting it pass, Jim Nantz and Phil Simms proceed to comment about how awful it was that fans cheered when Pennington went off injured.  Despite the fact that fans waited until Clemens came onto the field to cheer rather than immediately when Pennington went off hurt, these two still concluded that the cheer was meant as an insult to Pennington.  Even when Jets fans replicated the cheer after the completion, Nantz and Simms still stuck to their guns.  Simms even resorted to the Tim McCarver philosophy of “I don’t care what anyone says.  I am right,” with no justification.

Chad Pennington isn’t the best quarterback in the NFL, but, when he is healthy, he is competent and effective.  He has his weaknesses (arm strength), but has prominently displayed his ability to lead a team to the playoffs.  Furthermore, he was having an excellent game (16-21 for 167 yds and 2 TD).  Why on earth would the fans cheer Pennington getting injured?  There is no rational explanation for it.  Even Philly fans aren’t that sadistic.

For fans to cheer when the starting quarterback was injured, it would have to be a Joey Harrington in Detroit type situation, which Pennington’s time in New York surely is not.  It’s one thing to be wrong.  It’s another to be wrong and stubbornly cling to your position despite clear evidence to the contrary.  File this is as incident #578,642 that proves all football announcers are complete and utter buffoons.

ESPN is reporting that former Michigan State and Detroit Lions Wide Receiver Charles Rogers will attempt to revive his desiccated corpse of a football career in the friendly confines of the Canadian Football League.

Rogers was a three-time All-State wide-receiver at Saginaw High School before enrolling at Michigan State.  In three years at MSU, Rogers became arguably their best receiver of all time (at least statistically), tying Kirk Gibson’s record for career touchdowns with 27.

He was the first-round (#2 overall) pick of the Detroit Lions in the 2003 NFL Draft.  He caught 22 passes for 243 yards and 3 touchdowns during the first five games of his rookie season, before being lost to a broken collarbone in week 5.  The next season, he broke his collarbone again on the third play of the first game, putting him out for the entire year.  He served a 4-game suspension in 2005 for a third violation of the league’s substance abuse policy (Marijuana), and played in only nine games that year, catching 14 balls for 197 yards and 1 TD.  Rogers was released before the start of 2006.

Rogers worked out for New England, Tampa Bay, and Miami in 2006 but failed to earn a roster spot.  He was offered a workout by Kansas City in January 2007 but bombed after running a 4.8 40 yard-dash.  In a mere three seasons, he went from a #2 overall pick, to someone who couldn’t make an NFL roster.  At the tender age of 26, Rogers became a has-been.

Charles will go down as the prominent poster-boy of Matt Millen’s excess, joining fellow top ten picks Joey Harrington and Mike Williams as colossal busts.  However, he should be remembered as a caveat for all of the draft gurus obsessed with “freakish atlheticisms,” “great motors,” and performances in the combine.  All the physical tools in the world can’t help if you lack the drive and desire to harness them.  Had scouts looked back to the State Championship game of his senior year, when he only managed to catch 2 balls (both long bombs) despite being 4 inches taller and 2-3 steps faster than anyone else on the field.  They may have seen this one coming.

Bo Jackson may have been the greatest athlete of all-time.  As an outfielder for the Kansas City Royals, he had blazing speed, 30 HR power, and a cannon of an arm.  As a running back for the Raiders, Bo rushed for 2,782 yards and 16 touchdowns as a “backup” to Marcus Allen over four seasons.  His career yard per carry average of 5.4 would have be the highest in NFL history had he enough carries to qualify.  A hip dislocation and resulting complications in 1990 ended his football career and curtailed his promising baseball career as well.

However, despite Bo’s prodigious on the field performances, his legacy is intimately tied to his digital counterpart “Tecmo Bo.”  As the Raiders’ running back in the game Tecmo Super Bowl, Bo was, quite literally, unstoppable.  In tribute to the greatest video game athlete of all-time, here is a video of one of his epic 99-yard touchdown runs.

The Pittsburgh Steelers, one of the most iconic franchises in American sports, has unveiled a new mascot, named Steely McBeam.  The name was chosen in a fan vote, from 70,000 names that were submitted.  McBeam will appear at all team functions, and will make his regular season debut in the Steelers’ home opener on Sept. 16th.

The initial question that needs to be asked is why the Steelers felt they needed a mascot.  Does anyone like mascots?  Is there one mascot who makes a dramatic improvement to the entertainment experience at a sporting event?  The Steelers are, perhaps, the most traditional franchise in the NFL.  They rejected the notion of having cheerleaders because they felt it to be cheap and gimmicky.  Yet, they decide to create a mascot?  There is no rational explanation for this, except perhaps to rectify a distinct lack of prominent lower jaw in the wake of Bill Cowher’s departure from the team.

Second, could they have found a more porn-star sounding name than “Steely McBeam.”   There are phallic references in both the first and last name.  One would think that their first priority would be to make sure that the name could not be employed as a sexual pun.  Everyone over the age of 10 will snicker every time they hear the name.  How could an entire marketing team miss this?

We could also go into how ridiculous in apperance he is, but that would imply that there was such a thing as an attractive mascot.  However, it does warrant mention, that, depending on the perspective, his chin looks like either an arse or a woman’s spread legs.

The bottom line is that the Steelers have left a distinct group of teams that nobly avoided having an asinine alien like creature, animal, plant, or ridiculously outfitted white kid patrolling their sidelines.  A little bit of Steeler tradition and respectibility has died tonight, never to return.

Brady Quinn’s holdout from Browns’ training camp (which assuredly is about the principle of the thing and has nothing to do with the money) continues into its ninth day as the former Notre Dame QB remains unsigned.  Quinn had been projected as a top ten pick, but cascaded to #22 when the Browns traded up to get him.  This unexpected fall engendered a financial pit-fall, with him earning millions less than he would have had he been picked higher.  The contractual discord reportedly hinges upon performance incentives in the 4th and 5th year of the contract, as well as a bonus for playing time.  Quinn had expected to battle with incumbent Charlie Frye for the starting spot, but will now most likely spend the 2007 season on the bench.
The Browns deserve their fair share of the blame for this situation.  Not so much for taking a hard-line stance in negotiations, but for making their frustrations public.  Browns GM Phil Savage has been in the media making comments like the following.

“If you aren’t going to rank players one through 22, or one through 32, then there’s no reason to have a draft.”

“Fifty years from now, when they look into the history books of the Cleveland Browns, it is going to say, Brady Quinn, 22nd pick of the first round.”

Romeo Crennel has also been referring to him as simply “the quarterback.”  These are good negotiating ploys in private, but going out in public and demeaning your future franchise quarterback as only “the 22nd pick” is not exactly the smartest decision.  Generally one doesn’t get what they want from someone by insulting him or her to millions of people.  Quinn may also remember this when he negotiates future contracts with the Browns.

Also, if he was only “the 22nd pick” in terms of value, the team probably would not have worked him out when they had the #3 pick or traded away next year’s first round pick, which may be in the top ten, to get him.  Whatever Phil Savage thinks he is accomplishing by berating Quinn in public, it sure as hell isn’t getting him into training camp.

Quinn, quite obviously, deserves some of the blame for his holdout as well.   He, and his agent, have to come to the realization that he has left South Bend.  This is the real world where there aren’t legions of wealthy alumni and third-base floozies to comfort you when you lose bowl games or get destroyed by USC.  He is leaving the bubble and going back to Ohio, where he is still considered a traitor for choosing ND over Ohio St.  He is entering the environment of grown men who don’t care what you did (or in Quinn’s case were expected to and failed to) accomplish in College.

The most important thing for Quinn to do at this point is to get on the field.  Coming from Notre Dame, he is already a pretty boy, a great white hope, and a nationally recognized name and face.  The endorsements will come.  If he is a successful quarterback in this league, he will get paid.  Even now, he will still be a multi-millionaire just out of College.  He needs to get off his high horse and realize that he needs to prove himself, because he isn’t exactly ingratiating himself with either the Browns fans or his fellow players, whom he will be expected to lead onto the field of battle.

The status quo is hurting both the Browns and Brady Quinn.  It should not be that difficult to come to a sensible compromise and get Quinn into camp.  By hardening their negotiating stances, both sides are hindering their chances of success in the short term and down the road.  The only people smiling at this situation (besides Michigan and Ohio St. fans) are the Dallas Cowboys’ front office, who can already taste that sweet top 10 pick in 2008.