Too Short II

by A.J. Coltrane

Ok, I know I’m hung up on this “Russell Wilson Is Too Short Thing”, but:

Wilson has been called a test study in a league that hinges on centimeters and is steadfast on black-and-white metrics. A wide receiver is supposed to run the 40-yard dash in 4.5 seconds, an offensive lineman is supposed to weigh 300 pounds and a quarterback is supposed to stand at least 6-foot-2.

“He’s what you call an outlier,” said former Dallas Cowboys executive Gil Brandt, whose grading system would’ve subtracted 15 points for Wilson’s height. “You go broke looking for those guys. For every guy that you draft that’s three inches and four inches below the accepted minimum, 99 of 100 are going to fail. He’s a real exception.

“Have you ever talked to him personally? He’s the most dynamic guy you’ll ever be around. He has such an unusual flair. I mean, this guy wins you over with two minutes’ talk. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a quarterback that’s undersized like he is that has been so dynamic.”

Emphasis mine. Overall the piece gushes about Wilson. Including this:

…In the middle of the [locker-room] noise, Wilson is sitting on the floor in front of his locker, his face buried in a binder. He’s highlighting pages with a fluorescent marker. It’s as if he’s in a library. Oh, Wilson will engage with his teammates soon. In a couple of days, he’ll take the field against the Dallas Cowboys. He’ll struggle a bit in the first half, but will slap nearly every hand on special teams and make every man feel amped and important.

Then Wilson will scramble and throw lasers in the second half of a 27-7 victory. He completes 13 of his final 15 passes and throws for 151 yards and a touchdown. His 75 percent completion rate is the highest for a rookie in Seahawks history.

That’s fine, they can select their statistics to make him look good, but through the first two games Seattle is last in the league in passage yardage at 136 yards/game. (also 7th in Rushing, and 28th overall) They’re scoring 21.5 points per game, tied with Cleveland for 24th in the league.

The Seahawks play Green Bay on Monday night. Green Bay is 5th in total defense (7th pass, 28th rush). I’ll be interested to see what happens when Green Bay stacks the box to stop the run — they’re going to have to do it to win. My feeling is that it’s going to be a long day to be Russell Wilson.

Too Short

by A.J. Coltrane

From left to right: Matt Flynn, the recently departed Tavaris Jackson (he’s not dead, he’s just been traded to Buffalo), and new rookie starter Russell Wilson.

Flynn is 6′ 2″.

Jackson is 6′ 2″.

Wilson is 5′ 10″ +5/8″

Longtime readers may remember a series of posts I did looking at the heights of Super Bowl quarterbacks over the last 20 years. Those posts and research are now gone, but the result was: The average Super Bowl quarterback of the last 20 years stood 6′ 2″ – 6′ 3″. Wilson is a full four inches shorter than that.

Here’s a list all quarterbacks to win a Super Bowl. The only winner as short as 6’0″ is Drew Brees. Three time loser Fran Tarkenton was 6’0″. Len Dawson was 6’0″; he was the unfortunate loser of Super Bowl I. That’s the entire height-deficient list. 45 Superbowls = 90 quarterbacks, and three guys standing 6’0″.

Here’s the list of the all-time passing leaders. Find the shortest guy in the top 100. I don’t think there are any quarterbacks under 6’0″, even among the old-school guys.

I keep hearing Drew Brees comparisons as an example of a short quarterback who can be successful. The shortest listed height I’ve been able to find for Brees is 6’0″ — Brees is nearly an inch and a half taller than Wilson.

I’m belaboring this point: Unless Wilson is an outlier of truly historic proportions the Seahawks are barking up the wrong tree. I’d go with Flynn.

A Terrible Idea

By Blaidd Drwg

Why do I think that this is going to end up being a bad idea for the NFL:

Fans at NFL games this season will get a look under the hood, so to speak — all stadium video boards will show the same replay the lead official is viewing on the sideline video monitor.

I have a feeling 70,000 screaming fans might just provide a bit of influence to the ref’s decision making process. My guess is this does not last the season.

The full story is here.

Santonio Holmes and a Two QB System

By Blaidd Drwg

Mike-Mularkey — If you want to run a 2 QB system, you should talk to Mike Mularkey.

What is it about New York athletes running their mouths off?

Santonio Holmes, the talented but unstable receiver for the New York Jets, is complaining about the Jets using a 2 QB system involving Mark Sanchez and Tim Tebow.

Holmes says:

“… You have to allow one quarterback to get into the rhythm of a game and it starts from the preparation in practice,” he said. “(It’s) knowing the first couple of plays that he’s going to take these reps, it’s getting the feel for coming onto the field with the crowd awaiting you, it’s making the mistakes early in the game to finishing the games at the end.

“You don’t just change a guy out just because he has a few mistakes early into a game.”

Holmes had some issues with Jets QB Mark Sanchez last season, and personally, I think that most of those problems were because Holmes feels like every pass play should go to him.

Will a 2 QB system work in NY – I personally don’t think so. Sanchez isn’t that good and Tebow isn’t a QB, so I think you will have a few games of playing with this until the Jets abandon it.

Can it work? Sure it can. The Steelers had a ton of success running an offense with Antwann Randel El and Kordell Stewart (before he tried to become a QB) lining up under center and moving the QB (for many of those years it was Neil O’Donnell, Tommy Maddox and Kordell Stewart – after he became a QB) into a flanker position. It probably helped that the Steelers in those seasons had a killer running game, a great offensive line and the best blocking WR in NFL history (Hines Ward); none of which the Jets currently possess.

A Bruce Irvin Bio

by A.J. Coltrane

From SI.com. A story about Seahawks’ first-round draft pick and pass-rush specialist Bruce Irvin.

Reading it, I don’t think it’s really a surprise that most of the “experts” felt that the Seahawks drafted him with too high a pick. Who really knows, though — Aaron Curry was supposed to be a “can’t miss” prospect at the time…

The Future of Football in St. Louis

By Blaidd Drwg

The St Louis Rams apparently have one of the more bizarre leases I have seen, as a result, they are “in negotiations” with the city of St Louis to renovate the Edward Jones Dome. The city is proposing $124 million in improvements and the Rams are asking for…wait for it…$700 million in improvements, or what amounts to a new stadium.

The Jones Dome is less than 20 years old, not an old building by any means, but old by greedy millionaire sports owner’s standards. The Rams have a 30 year lease for the stadium, but can break it because of the following:

The 30-year lease signed when the Rams arrived in St. Louis from Los Angeles prior to the 1995 season requires that the dome remain among the top eight of the 31 NFL stadiums or the team can break the lease at certain junctures, the next being after the 2014 season. Owner Stan Kroenke has been non-committal about the team’s future if the dome isn’t improved.

I love the use of the “give us what we want or we will leave” gambit. The stadium opened in 1995, was completely publicly funded and won’t be paid off until 2025. The construction costs were $280 million, but with improvements made over the years and interest on the bonds, the stadium will end up costing the taxpayers around $720 million dollars.

The Rams want a retractable roof, among other things, which would require the stadium and adjoining convention center to be closed for 3 years. Additionally, the Rams want the entire thing funded by public money. The estimate is that will cost $500 in revenue. Based on that, the cost of the stadium would be somewhere around $2 billion dollars when all is said and done. Somehow I think that the city, county and state would all be better off if they told the Rams to take a hike and spent their money elsewhere rather than give a bunch of really rich people a place to socialize on 10 Sundays a year.

Seahawks Sign Matt Flynn

by A.J. Coltrane

The Seahawks signed Green Bay QB Matt Flynn to a 3-year, $26 million dollar deal on Sunday. I’ve been so wrapped up in the NCAA tournament that I didn’t notice until today.

The dollars and length seem about right.

The Whitehurst experiment didn’t work. Maybe Flynn will be a better answer.

I’m willing to consider about anything so that I don’t have to watch Tavaris Jackson.

Random Super Bowl Thoughts

By Blaidd Drwg

aberdeen-625x450 — One of the Puppy Bowl Starters - Aberdeen. So much cuter than Tom Brady.

Unless you have been living under a rock for the last 2 weeks, you know that the Super Bowl is this weekend and is a rematch between the Patriots and the Giants. As outlined here, I will be rooting for the Giants and to make the game interesting, I have a bet on the game (straight up – I have the Giants) with a friend of mine, Big Mike, who is a rabid Pats fan. If I win, I get lobsters shipped from Massachusetts (and maybe a reimagining of a lobster dinner I did a couple of years ago). If he wins, he gets a Northwest goodies basket.

I really don’t have a great deal of interest in the game and I really just want it to be over. I am tired of the 2 weeks of analysis of every aspect of the game, I am tired about hearing about Tom Brady and Eli Manning and frankly, I am tired of Patriots fans in general – they are obnoxious, sore winner, even worse losers; essentially the Yankees fans of the NFL.

If you aren’t much of a football fan or just want to watch something other than a 50+ year old Madonna doing a pre-recorded halftime show, switch on over to Animal Planet – they are running their 8th annual “Puppy Bowl”. What is Puppy Bowl? It is several hours of puppies running around, playing and generally looking cute to raise awareness for shelter animals. It is really just puppy overload. If that isn’t enough, you also get the kitty halftime show, which is a bunch of kittens playing, and, new this year, is the piglet cheerleaders. Overall it is just going to be hours of animal cuteness. Animal Planet runs it on a loop pretty much all day, so you can see pretty much any time you want. You can see more pics of Puppy Bowl here.

If for some reason you really want to watch the game, Volkswagen has 2 great Star Wars themed spots for this year’s game. If you really care to see them in their entirety, they are below. The first one is brilliant, the second one is just laugh out loud funny.

The Pass Happy NFL

By Blaidd Drwg

An interesting stat was mentioned in the Giants-Falcons playoff game – Eli Manning’s 4,900 yard season was the 6th highest single season total in NFL history. That is impressive, until I realized that Eli Manning’s 4,900 yard season was the 4th highest total in the NFL THIS SEASON. Heck, the NFL went so pass happy this year that Manning only had the 3rd highest total in the NFC this season. Three of the five 5,000 yard seasons in NFL history occurred this year and 2 QB’s (Brees and Brady) both Broke Dan Marino’s NFL mark for a season.

Granted, a lot of this had to do with the length of the NFL season (the 16 game schedule is only 35 years old) and changes to the rules that make it easier on the QB’s and WR’s, as well as a shift to the short passes of West Coast offense, which is all about high percentage short passes, but it got out of control this season.

Strangely, with all of the passing that happened this year, the NFL single game record still stands – set by Hall of Famer Norm Van Brocklin with 554 yards way back in 1954. Matthew Stafford was the only QB this season to throw for at least 500 yards in a game this season and he still ended up 34 yards short of the record.

Former BC Eagles in the NFL

By Blaidd Drwg

There are currently 15 former Boston College Eagles in the NFL. They are:

Ron Brace – Patriots
BJ Raji – Packers
Gosder Cherilus – Lions
Jo-Lonn Dunbar – Saints
Matt Ryan – Falcons
Will Blackmon – Giants
Ricky Brown – Raiders
Mathias Kiwanuka – Giants
Jereny Trueblood – Buccaneers
Tim Bulman – Texans
Chris Snee – Giants
Antonio Garay – Chargers
Dan Koppen – Patriots
Mark Colombo – Dolphins
Matt Hasselbeck – Titans

Of course, there is also the BC connection with Tom Coughlin at the helm of the Giants. Not bad for a school that has not exactly been known as a football powerhouse over the years. Since my beloved Steelers are out of the playoffs, I usually end up rooting for the team that is left with the most BC players, which is, the Giants. Their playoff run is an interesting one this year, considering that they could potentially face a team in every round of the playoffs that has at least 1 former BC player on it:

Wild Card Round – they beat the Matt Ryan lead Atlanta Falcons
Divisional Round – they play the Green Bay Packers who have BJ Raji on their Defensive Line
Conference Championship – They could potentially play the New Orleans Saints with Jo-Lonn Dunbar roaming the secondary
Super Bowl – They might end up playing the New England Patriots with Dan Koppen on the offensive line.

It probably doesn’t mean much to most people, but as a BC alumnus, I think it is cool.