Immutable Records and The Stars of ’79

by A.J. Coltrane

When I was in grade school we had the “Scholastic Book Club.” The program allowed students to buy small paperbacks for a nominal amount of money. Sports titles included “Winners Under 21”, featuring Muhammed Ali and Wayne Gretzky. I also bought the book shown below:

: Pre-teen football junkie gold.

Ebay listing here. Featuring: Walter Payton, Franco Harris, Harvey Martin, Bob Griese, O.J. Simpson, Greg Pruitt, Isaac Curtis, Lyle Alzado, Lydell Mitchell, Tony Dorsett, and Bert Jones.

One of the other books was a sort of “Legends and Record Holders” — that’s how I became familiar with guys like Night Train Lane, Jim Brown, and George Blanda. Brown and Blanda both held records that were never surpassed until the introduction of the 16-game season: Brown with his 12,312 career rushing yards, and Blanda with his 2,002 career points over a 26 year career.

All this time has gone by, and I didn’t have to look those numbers up. To my young mind those records were both eternal and immortal. Blanda passed away on Monday, and it reminded me of all of those Scholastic Club books. I got to looking at the cover of the All-Stars of Pro Football and I couldn’t identify the player in the center of the picture…

After some research, I think it’s Boobie Clark. The photograph was taken during the San Diego Chargers – Houston Oilers divisional playoff game in December 1979. Quarterback Dan Pastorini, Running Back Earl Campbell, and Wide Receiver Ken Burrough were all injured during the previous game against the Broncos. They represented the Oilers top offensive weapons, and each would miss the game pictured above. The modern equivalent would be the Colts losing Peyton Manning, Joseph Addai, and Reggie Wayne for a playoff game, and winning the game anyway.

Boobie scored on a 1 yard touchdown run to give the Oilers a 10-7 halftime lead. The Oilers went on to win 17-14, and Boobie cemented his own small piece of immortality on the cover a book purchased by ten year-old boys everywhere.

Final question: Did the publishers have a meeting and say to each other: “Let’s put the Oiler’s 3rd string running back on the cover of our All-Pro issue and we’ll confuse the hell out of some guy in 30 years.”

I’m guessing maybe they did.

Quarterback Carousel

by Coltrane

Team	Checking In	Checking Out	2009 Record	2009 Passing Rank	2009 Points/ Game
Raiders	Jason Campbell	JaMarcus Russell	5-11	29th	12.3
Redskins	Donovan McNabb	Jason Cambell	4-12	15th	16.6
Eagles	Kevin Kolb	Donovan McNabb	11-5	10th	26.8

John Clayton thinks that Donovan McNabb will add 5-6 points per game to the Redskins’ offense.

I always start by assuming that Clayton is correct. Then, if I don’t agree with him, I figure I must have missed something. However —

Here’s what I think:

McNabb and new coach Mike Shanahan will score 3-5 more points per game than the 2009 Redskins. A big part of that will be (or should be) attributed to the upgrade from Zorn to Shanahan.

The Eagles won’t miss McNabb. Philadelphia was 5th in the league in scoring last year, so some regression back to the pack is figured in the chart below. Kevin Kolb will be an All-Pro within three years.

The Raiders will make a big leap forward with Jason Campbell. Part of that will be due to JaMarcus Russell’s release, simple addition by subtraction.

To sum up:

Donovan McNabb — Overrated.

Jason Campbell — Very underrated.

Kevin Kolb — Mostly unknown commodity, but not for long.

2010 predicted totals — something like:

Team	New QB	2009 Points/ Game	2010 Points/ Game	Change
Raiders	Jason Campbell	12.3	17.1	+4.8
Redskins	Donovan McNabb	16.6	20.5	+3.9
Eagles	Kevin Kolb	26.8	25.4	-1.4

Alex Gibbs

by Coltrane

Recently hired offensive line coach Alex Gibbs has left the Seahawks.

I had originally started to write about Alex Gibbs on January 15 — according to the “Properties” of the piece I’ve been messing with for a while. That’s eight months ago. Evidently I think it’s more interesting now that he’s gone.

From Greg Johns, SeattlePi.com:

Of all the offseason hires by Pete Carroll, the biggest and most ballyhooed was the addition of offensive line coach Alex Gibbs to his Seahawks coaching staff.

Gibbs, 69, was heralded as the guru of zone blocking and one of the most-respected assistants in the NFL.

He was the guy who could take late-round draft picks of marginal talent and mold them into a lean, mean fighting machine that would mow down opposing defensive lines with their cut-blocking skills and open up creases to revive Seattle’s ground game.

He was the man excited about the potential of first-round draft pick Russell Okung, the fellow whose familiarity with veteran guard Ben Hamilton made him a perfect fit, the perfectionist who was cussing and yelling and setting a tough tone for Seattle’s rebuilding line at every practice…

Here’s a couple of excerpts from what I’d written:

One of the coaches joining Pete Carroll in Seattle is Joe Gibbs’ kid, Alex Gibbs. Alex’s recent history includes coaching the offensive line in Denver from 1995-2003. In 2004 Gibbs went to Atlanta, staying on as a consultant from 2005-2006. Finally, in 2008-2009 he served as the offensive line coach with Houston. His resume also includes stops in Kansas City, Indianapolis, San Diego, and with the Los Angeles Raiders. His teams are usually among the league leaders in rushing yards…

[Insert Really Cool Chart That Requires A Bunch Of Work That Somehow Never Got Finished Here]

…besides producing 1,000 yard rushers, the teams in Denver were famous for something else — the offensive linemen would consistently take cracks at the knees of the opposing defensive line. Each week the defensive linemen would say: “Yeah, no. I think I’ll take the week off and protect my knees and career.” The Denver running backs would use that opportunity to run wild. Remember when Magic had 42 points in the All-Star game because nobody wanted to get within 20 feet of him? Yeah, that.

Personally I think that strategy is pretty distasteful. I’d guess if the Seahawks win the fans will look the other way. Do the ends justify the means?

The Greg Johns piece goes into some detail as to the whys and wherefores of Alex Gibbs’ departure. It’s a good piece, and well worth reading for Seahawks fans.

I think it fundamentally comes down to just a few things:

1. Gibbs prefers small, agile linemen. Pete Carroll is building a “big” team. It’s a post for another day, but I’ll bet this years Seahawks as a group are on average at least 1/2″ taller than last year, and at least 5 pounds heavier.

2. The Seahawks offensive line is in a shambles, and Gibbs doesn’t want his good name associated with it. (Pure speculation, but entirely reasonable.)

3. Gibbs is too old for this stuff. The man is 69 years old.

I remember seeing a comedian a number of years ago who said: “Ronald Reagan is 77 years old and he has access to ‘The Button.’ — My grandfather is 77 and we don’t let him touch the remote control.”

I guess that’s an old joke now. If Reagan were alive he’d be 99, and he’s been dead for six years. (Sad thing is, I had to go to wikipedia to confirm he’s actually deceased. He basically went into hiding near the end of his life.)

Further Aside: For those of you too young to remember the Cold War — “The Button” would launch America’s nuclear warheads at the Russians. Just so we’re clear. Watch the movie “WarGames” sometime. In real life Reagan was basically the WOPR computer, minus the scary blinking lights. (And no, the computer wasn’t a reanimated hamburger, though that would be scary.)

Back onto topic. I’ll be very interested to see how the offensive line shapes up this year. I’m going to be especially interested to see if the Seahawks employ the cut-blocking tactics described above.

My hope is that the Seahawks elect to knock people on their butts the old-fashioned way, by using the larger athletes to shove the opposition around.

Seahawks To Win 8 Games, More Or Less

by Coltrane

The Vegas over/under for Seahawks wins is 7.5.

The ESPN experts all pick the Seahawks to finish 3rd in the NFC West. This John Clayton quote is typical of the overall opinions:

DIVISION FINISH: 3 Pete Carroll isn’t loaded with talent as he was as the USC head coach, but he has a nice plan to rebuild the Seahawks. As long as Matt Hasselbeck stays healthy, Carroll could squeeze out seven or eight wins.

Hasselbeck won’t be in Seattle the next time the Seahawks are competitive. Charlie Whitehurst seems to have the “correct” size, arm, high release, and mobility to be at least an adequate replacement when the time comes. My concern with Whitehurst (from what little I’ve seen) is that his throws “sail” when he loses his release point. Jeff Kemp had the same issue when he was with Seattle, and that didn’t turn out well.

What makes the Seahawks a .500 team? For reference, Scouts.inc grades NFL players on a 1 to 100 scale. A grade of 90 or above is considered “Elite”; 80-89 is “Outstanding”, and 75-79 is a “Solid Starter.”

The five highest rated Seahawks:

Lofa Tatupu – 79

T.J. Houshmandzadeh – 79

Aaron Curry – 78

Brandon Mebane – 78

Marcus Trufant – 78

And those are the studs.

Bill Simmons ranks the Seahawks QBs 28th out of the 32-team league.

The Card That Launched One Thousand Ships

by Coltrane

Somehow the card came to be in our house. It materialized one day on the elevated hearth that framed our fireplace. I doubt that we purchased it, as it was in a plastic angled display stand, and plastic angled display stands were beyond our young means.

I don’t remember the card’s origins, but one thing is for certain: Its existence led to a spirited discussion between my brother and I as to whom it belonged to — so spirited in fact that my mother responded to the situation by taking the card away from both of us. We never saw it again. I’m sure that there’s a lesson in there someplace, but for the life of me I couldn’t tell you what it might be.

II.

When I was in high school I got my first office job. It was functionally a government job. “Motivated” was not one of the words you would associate with many of my coworkers. One of the younger, particularly myopic guys collected baseball cards, studying card magazines while at work. He didn’t collect them for fun though. This was during the late ’80’s boom that saw baseball cards escalate wildly in value. “You should really put some money into baseball cards”, he’d say. “It’s like printing money”, he’d insist. I didn’t see the point — it wasn’t fun, why bother?

Shortly after that conversation the government pulled the funding from our project and we all got laid off, effective in one month. Most of the employees spent that last month looking forlorn and sending out resumes. I went off to college with the money I’d saved working there. The myopic guy wound up with no job and, years later, a pile of valueless cardboard. I’d like to think there was a lesson in there someplace, but I’m not sure on that one either.

III.

I liked Fran Tarkenton when I was a kid. Tarkenton was a little guy who was famous for his improvisational skills — “Fran The Scram.” He eventually broke Johnny Unitas’ record for touchdowns and career passing yards. It was my understanding that at the time some folks didn’t look too kindly upon Fran knocking Johnny off of the top spots in the record books. Unitas was a Quarterback — tall, crew cut, and all business. Fran’s image was that he was out there winging it, and according to Unitas fans that was not the proper way to play quarterback. Even now, Tarkenton still ranks 4th in career touchdowns and 6th in career passing yards, despite the NFL only playing 14 games per year back then.

Who did he play like? Probably the most similar modern quarterback to Tarkenton would be Doug Flutie. Flutie got stuck playing in the CFL for much of his career, picking up a few Grey Cup championships in the process. Jim Zorn would probably be another good comp as well, if he were a better quarterback than he really was. Each of those guys was really mobile, but not so mobile as to detract from a quarterback’s real purpose in life — throwing the ball.

I’d guess that card is now worth about $20, wherever it is.

The 2010 NFL Draft

by Coltrane

The NFL Draft has a new format this year: Round 1 is today at 4:30, Rounds 2 and 3 are tomorrow starting at 3:00, and Rounds 4-7 are on Saturday starting at 10:00 am. All times pst.

An interesting subplot will be to see who goes first– Colt McCoy or Tim Tebow. One mock draft has McCoy at #38 and Tebow at #41. I won’t be shocked if either of them go in the first round instead.

Seahawks picks:

Round 1: #6

Round 1: #14

Round 2: #28 (60th overall)

Round 4: #6 (104th overall)

Round 4: #29 (127th overall)

And some other stuff in later rounds that will be lucky to make the roster.

Waiting For The Other Shoe

by Coltrane

The Seahawks have the 6th and 14th picks in the 2010 NFL draft. This is a deep draft, and it’s deep for offensive and defensive linemen in particular. Having said that, the Seahawks should draft the best available lineman with both first round picks. This is the type of draft where the Seahawks could get their next Walter Jones and/or their next Cortez Kennedy, so long as they don’t blow the picks on skill-position players.

Bill Simmons sums up my concerns about the Seahawks draft (and Pete Carroll) on ESPN.com. He’s referencing the 6th pick:

On Monday’s B.S. Report, Mike Lombardi compared this spot to playing pool: The Seahawks also pick 14th, so they want to make this “shot,” then have the cue ball bounce to a spot where they’ll have another easy shot. This analogy works splendidly unless it’s 2 a.m. and you have some chain-smoking drunk dude trying to pull it off. And I guess what I’m trying to say is this: Pete Carroll might be the chain-smoking drunk dude.

I found it perplexing that Seattle handed the coaching/front-office car keys to Carroll this past winter for two reasons. First, it’s always weird when NFL teams pay huge money to lure successful college coaches when the jobs are so fundamentally different. It’s the distant cousin of Hollywood’s allowing star actors to direct (with a similar track record of success). So you excelled at a job that’s 75 percent recruiting and 25 percent strategy, you’ve been basically playing the “Pro” level of “Madden” and now we’re asking you to jump to “All-Madden” without a safety net, and you have no feel for the other 31 NFL rosters because you haven’t been following our league at all. This should work great!

Second, Carroll became the Patriots’ coach the same year I launched my http://www.bostonsportsguy.com website. He did such a dreadful job that a reader once e-mailed me, “Pete Carroll answers the question of why Fredo was never given control of the Corleone family,” followed by my immediately nicknaming Carroll “Coach Fredo” for the rest of his tenure. As it turned out, the comparison was an insult to Fredo. It took Carroll two years to destroy a Super Bowl team, and after he left, it took the Patriots two years to win a Super Bowl. You couldn’t do worse. Even Fredo has “banged two cocktail waitresses” on his résumé.

Now, this was a good 10-plus years ago, and I was smoking a ton of pot back then, but I specifically remember thinking to myself in 1999, “Pete Carroll is definitely not meant to coach professional football or pick the players.” I didn’t think Carroll was meant to coach football, period. His USC experience revealed that he’s meant to recruit 18-year-olds, hop around on the sideline, pump his fists, do the rah-rah routine, design fun defenses and give likable news conferences. We already saw this routine in the NFL: His name was Herm Edwards. It’s not going to work.

That’s a much longer quote than usual, but parsing it out wouldn’t make as much sense. There is no “quick fix” that’s going to make the Seahawks a Super Bowl contender. Drafting someone like RB C.J. Spiller or QB Jimmy Clausen would be a flashy pick, and the fans would love it, but it would putting the cart before the horse. That’s not how to rebuild an NFL franchise. Especially with the new-look Seahawks.

The new Seahawks are going to require agile offensive linemen. Offensive line coach Alex Gibbs likes mobile guys that dive into the defenders’ knees. Rob Sims didn’t fit that type, so he’s now with the Lions. Personally, I find Alex Gibbs’ tactics repulsive, but that’s a subject for another post.

If Safety Eric Berry drops to 6th then the Seahawks have to take him. Otherwise hopefully it’ll be Big Guys all the way.

Colt McCoy’s Pro Day

by Coltrane

Colt McCoy had an outstanding Pro Day on Thursday. At least one observer thought he looked better than likely #1 overall pick Sam Bradford.

Green Bay Packers coach Mike McCarthy said McCoy answered any questions about his injury.

“I thought he did a very good job,” McCarthy said.

McCarthy was in Norman, Okla., on Monday to watch former Sooners quarterback Sam Bradford, who might be the first overall pick. Like McCoy, Bradford had a shoulder injury last season. Bradford completed all but one of his passes in front of the scouts.

“I liked this workout better. I thought Colt was challenged more in his workout as far as the types of throws,” McCarthy said. “Sam was very accurate, but Sam’s workout was very controlled. He didn’t do as much movement.”

Seattle Seahawks coach Pete Carroll said it would be expected for McCoy to complete all of his passes.

“This is not real football, this is a workout,” Carroll said. “His footwork was really good.”

Carroll rated McCoy’s arm strength, a question mark for some scouts, as “solid.”

Here come the Oregon Ducks

by Coltrane

Tim Floyd (former USC and NBA coach) has taken over the helm at UTEP.

Steve Lavin (former UCLA coach and ESPN broadcaster) is now at St. Johns.

The really interesting one to me was Tom Izzo of Michigan State denying that he had been contacted by Oregon.

Ernie Kent is gone. Oregon has hundreds of thousands of Phil Knight’s dollars. They have the Nike empire behind them. Expect them to make a huge splash with their next basketball head coach. It may not be Tom Izzo, but don’t be surprised when it’s a household name. Keep in mind that many basketball camps and AAU teams are affiliated with a brand of shoes and clothing, either “Nike” or somebody else — it’s a huge amount of exposure.

Ernie Kent wasn’t a bad coach, but if Oregon gets a really good, really well connected coach and Nike throws its weight behind him — look out.

Buyer Beware on Jimmy Clausen

By Blaidd Drwg

All of the mock drafts I have seen seem to be pretty high on Jimmy Clausen, the Notre Dame QB, who if you believe the hype, will be the next Joe Montana. I keep hearing about his poise, maturity and ability to deal with pressure – all of which lead a perennially overrated ND team to an amazing 6-6 record against a soft schedule. All of the hype is taking me back to the 1993 draft when the debate was all about who should be the first choice in the draft – Rick Mirer or Drew Bledsoe. We all know how well that worked out.

This, combined with the end of the Brady Quinn era in Cleveland (remember when he was the second coming of Montana?) did get me thinking – who has been the most successful ND QB drafted since Montana. The answer surprised me – Steve Beuerlein. He is the only one to appear in a pro bowl, and his stats in every category are higher than the other 5 ND QBs drafted over the last 29 years – COMBINED.

YR	Draft Rd/Pos	Player	Games	YDS	TD	INT
2007	1/22	Brady Quinn	14	1902	10	9
2000	7/214	Jarious Jackson	5	114	0	1
1993	1/2	Rick Mirer	80	11969	50	76
1987	4/110	Steve Beuerlein	147	24046	147	112
1984	11/281	Blair Kiel	25	1296	8	7
1980	4/89	Rusty Lisch	30	547	1	11

Eventually a ND is QB is bound to do something in the NFL – just maybe teams should wait a few more rounds before picking him.