Riddle Me This, Jishman

So, a few days ago, there was a debate as to whether or not the Giants should draft an LB, and admittedly, I was on the side that said they should either draft an LB or CB with their first pick (although, wasn’t opposed to them drafting an OT with their first pick either). Well, it turns out, here is the reason. Last year’s first round pick, former Defensive End, Mathias Kiwanuka can pick up the slack. Jerry Reese is convinced, thus, so am I.

Alright, so I know a lot will be written about this in the upcoming days, but can I just say for a moment that the New England Patriots are the team to beat in the AFC East and possibly the whole AFC? (Alright, consider it said) I’m a Jets fan and *I* think this is a great addition for the Pats.

Tom Brady, Richard Seymour, Tedy Bruschi, Rodney Harrison, Adalius Thomas, Asante Samuel (when he reports), Laurence Maroney, and now, Randy Moss adding his talents to this team. No one wants him to be a leader on this team. Just play (baby).

Man, I love the draft.

Addition: Isn’t it somewhat curiously fitting that the LIONS selected Mr. Irrelevent? I thought so too.

This draft is so unpredictable… I don’t even count out Al Davis pulling a Matt Millen and taking Calvin Johnson with the first pick overall… dumb for Davis? Yes. Could he/would he/ will he? Don’t Rule it out.

As unpredictable and as difficult as this NFL Draft is to predict, I have decided to step away from my usual conservative/calculated style of prognostication and have some fun with this draft. I have emailed people supposedly “in the know”, I have talked with people supposedly “in the know”, I have read articles, watched film and followed every possible lead and my final analysis….. this NFL draft could go one of two ways…. predictable and boring….. OR…. this one could be an all out crap shoot where teams roll the dice, step outside their comfort zones and do what is best for their teams and leaving the boring conservative side back home in the garage.

This mock draft is based on a little bit of both…. some crazy stuff that will make you scratch your head (especially in the bottom half of this Mock draft)…. and some conservative stuff that you will agree with right off the bat (most of it in the top half of the draft)….. anyway, I may be just as baffled as you are this time but for the Final time this spring, I will make my prediction and I have posted my Final 2007 NFL Mock Draft.

To see my previous mock draft… and the links to the ones prior to that, click here…

Without further adieu, I give you my FINAL 2007 NFL MOCK DRAFT!!!!… we’ll see how I do on Saturday.

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Now, as we all know, here at RMTJ, we’re always out to help for (pick your Parent’s) Day.

1.) For those of you who have Ghetto Fabulous Mothers, I HIGHLY recommend the 24 carot golden iPod. Laser etchings? Lame. iSkins? Garbage. Not for me. I want gold, lots of it! And if you could find a way to get rhinestones, EVEN BETTER!

2.) For those of you who have the techno-freakish parents (not unlike my father who recently has released his inner “geek”), I highly recommend the newest hybrid hard drive. Faster boot times, faster operations, and of course, lower power costs.

3.) Now, have you ever had one of those days when you just can’t find your grill? Now its not a problem! PORTABLE GRILL! Now you can make sausage, bacon, ham…you know, all things I don’t eat…but you might! Thus, a portable grill is the perfect gift!

Gotta love a gift giving season.

It was Charley Steiner at the end that really made this commercial art.

Good Monday morning to you all. While I love the idea of taking a cruise, part of the fun is the ports of call. Therefore, I submit these folks and their attempt at take a 1,000 day, 3 times around the world voyage, without making any ports of call an early entry into this weeks DOTW.

This is one of those old-time pictures that we got taken at the Blazin’ M Ranch (click here for website) but I am getting way ahead of myself here. Most of the pictures I was going to add to this post are too big to be uploaded. Therefore, I led with this photo and at the very end of the post, you can click on my Yahoo Slide Show to see the rest of the photos.

Let me start at the begining:

Our trip started on April 10, 2007, very early in the morning. Our Limo (which was supposed to be a Suburban) showed up at 6:00am EST. The kids were extremely excited to be traveling in a stretch Limousine.We met up at Logan airport with the rest of the family, boarded our plane and were on our way by 8:45am EST. Boston to Pheonix is a six hour flight.

I must have drawn the short straw because my seat was right next to a guy I ended up calling “Arty McFarty” for reasons I guess you can surmise, so I won’t go into detail. Although I must admit… except for a few screetches from Chloe here and there, the flight was pleasant for most of the family members and we were all ecstatic when we finally touched down in Pheonix, Arizona. It was time to start the fun!!!

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So, this weekend, I got asked an interesting question by one of the undergraduate students I was with at the leadership retreat (don’t ask): “If the Dallas Cowboys ran a 3-4 before, and they’re going to be running a 3-4 now with their new head coach, why are people expecting them to be so much better this season?”

Well, the answer is multi-fold, and according to a few friends of mine, not as easy to understand as you’d expect. However, the simple answer is this: they will be better because new Head Coach Wade Phillips just was Defensive Coordinator of one of the best Defenses in the National Football League. Dallas has Greg Ellis (when he’s healthy) and Demarcus Ware (one of the most dominant OLBs in the NFL) at outside line backer, along with experienced 3-4 DL Jason Fergason, Chris Canty and Marcus Spears, and a host of other players. This unit wasn’t bad, as their 12th in the league status showed. Unfortunately, they were both inconsistent, and more importantly, much weaker once Ellis went down. They couldn’t generate a pass rush, and this is where the differences lie.

The 3-4 Defense that Bill Parcells, Belichick, Mangini, Nick Saban, Romeo Crennel, Kirk Ferentz, Dick LeBeau, Dom Capers, et al, all preach is a 2-gap DL assignment scheme. It requires the DLmen take up 2 blockers, so the OLBs (or whomever is blitzing) can have one player - usually a TE, RB or RT (ie the weaker of the two tackles) - blocking them. It means that the NT will line up right over the center, and the two ends will line up over the tackles, while attempting to keep 4 to all 5 OLmen busy with just these three players. This system also means that the DLmen will not get as many tackles as the LBs, because their assignments will be to keep OLmen at bay while the back seven gets the glory. (Now, yes, I know that LeBeau runs a slightly different scheme that involves zone blitzing, etc., but for now, let’s just keep this simple, mm’kay?)

Wade Phillips, who also preaches the 3-4 like gospel, runs a slightly different version of it. He likes to use his DL as 1-gap players, or similiar to the 4-3 system many use coming out of college. This means that the NT still attempts to keep two men at bay, but the DEs are rushing the passer and guarding against the run as a by-product of these efforts. While the LBs will frequently get credit for a great many tackles, sacks, etc. in this scheme as well, it also means that the DEs will get more sack opportunities as well. San Diego was lucky with their selections of Shaun Phillips and Shawne Merriman (who combined for 28.5 sacks - more than the Washington Redskins entire defense!), and when you include their two starters at DE, that number rose to 38 sacks. This scheme is much more aggressive than the “Bend but don’t break” model that NFL teams have been using for years (and the defensive coordinators preaching it above have a combined 7000 years of NFL history amongst them). To give you a frame of reference, Dick LeBeau was the Defensive Coordinator for the Cincinnati Bengals in the 1970s and Belichick worked for the NY Giants in 1979 as linebackers coach (and DC in 1984).

So, as you can see, there’s a slight difference between the much more common “bend but don’t break” model and the more aggressive one.

A few weeks ago, I posted about my nephew’s baseball team (click here for post).

I just got a package in the mail from my brother yesterday that had some interesting news. Well, it turns out that Lansing ended up in a full color picture (both pages) in Baseball the Magazine (click here for their website). The cover on their homepage is the cover of the magazine that Lansing was shown pitching in the USSSA Winter World Championship where his team went 5-1.

I did a little more investigation of the website and even though I couldn’t open the magazine pages but I was able to find the picture from the magazine in their photo gallery of the USSSA Winter World Championship (click here to see the photo).

My brother, Paul, wrote about the picture:

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It’s been a rough week. In the past four days, I’ve had to hand in 5 papers, destroy the psyche of a hippy chick, rule all of Hades with an iron fist, and hand in a finance case study assignment. I’ve just been swamped. But realizing that I only have one class tomorrow before I go back and work ad nauseum virtually all weekend, I decided tonight was going to be a special meal. Normally I save my “special meals” for Friday nights, but because I’ll be out of town tomorrow through Saturday night, I moved it up one day.
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I have been in Arizona for the better part of the past two weeks and I must admit, I love the chatter that my last Mock draft generated… keep the comments coming… and always feel free to pass along info if you hear of any good rumors. (link to the last mock draft, click here)

Here is my latest projection. I will have a final Mock draft posted by late next week…

1. Oakland Raiders: JaMarcus Russell, QB, LSU

No change here… Russell still heads the pack but watch the trade talks between the Lions and the Raiders this week. If McCown is dealt, Johnson will be the selection.

Trade: Tampa Bay trades the #4 pick and their second 2nd round pick (and/or possibly Simms or Plummer) for Detroit’s #2 selection. (Also, keep an eye on Atlanta who may package all of the picks from the Houston deal to move up and grab Johnson at #2 but for now, I see the trade being with the Bucs.)

2. Tampa Bay Buccaneers: Calvin Johnson, WR, Georgia Tech

No change here… Rumor has it that John Gruden is willing to trade all the way to the #1 pick… If he does, he’ll be selling the farm. I think he will find a very palatable deal from the Lions and get the guy he wants.

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Now, I know I pick on Boston alot on this blog. But I think this one might take the cake. On Patriot’s Day in Boston, four things always happen:

1.) The Boston Marathon is run,
2.) A Kenyan always wins
3.) The Boston Red SAWX play a home game
4.) Boston Red SAWX fans will be drunk.

Now, before I go turbo on SAWX fans, I’m not much of a drinker, but WHO THE HELL GETS DRUNK BEFORE AN 11AM GAME?!?!?! (I only ask because they don’t sell beer at Red SAWX games before 1pm). Now, as for what happened:

SAWX Right Fielder, JD Drew fouled a ball off down the left field line. the ball went into the stands, and sadly, the guy closest to the ball dropped it back into the field of play and his beer too! The result? A foul ball. When INEXPLICABLY a guy 4 seats a way THREW HIS SLICE OF PIZZA at the guy who dropped the ball! NO RATIONALE BEHIND IT!

You know what, why don’t you watch it? Its almost too stupid to mock….nah!

Yes, that’s right, kids. The Knicks are 3-14 since Isaiah Thomas got his new contract. Sigh. I really don’t know what to say.

Now, in his defense, I can’t pick on the injuries. David Lee (aka their one consistently good player in my mind), Quentin Richardson (aka Starbury “lite”), Steve Francis (aka “Mini-Starbury”), Jamal Crawford (see above) and then the original, Starbury himself, all got injured in the last month. I really can’t blame those on Zeke (alright…I can, but who would believe me).

That having been said, what I can blame on Zeke is that the Knicks would have had quality backups had he not traded away basically every pick they’ve had since he took over and taken Rolando Black…ahem, Renaldo Balkman and Mardy Collins (who?!?). Oh yeah, and they wouldn’t have Kelvin Cato (averaging less than 1 minute per game), Jerome James (7 minutes), and Malik Rose (”older than Methuselah” as my dad would say) as their “backups”. James was supposed to start from day one. Nope. Rose was, in Zeke’s words, “one of the reasons we made this deal.” Nope. Cato? He could have been had in the Stevie Franchise deal, but not our Zeke. “Why trade for what you can over pay.” That’s his motto.

Ah, Zeke. You hurt me. Now at least I have the Jets, Yankees and my new favorite summer team, the DC United to stress over. Say it with me now, OLAY OLAY OLAY OLAY!

so this is funny….

1. go to www.google.com
2. click on “maps,” above the search bar…
3. click on “get directions”
4. type ” New York ” in the first box (the “from” box)
5. type ” Paris ” in the second box (the “to” box)
6. click on “get directions”
6. scroll down to step #23

So, how long before he starts fighting with himself and quits his own solo career because he can’t get along with himself?

For those of you who don’t remember, Noel Gallagher, former lead singer of Oasis (the band he started with his brother Liam), quit the band because he claimed he couldn’t get along with his brother. Upon quitting, he then proceeded to taunt his brother and the rest of the band from the stands at each performance, causing his younger and more angry brother to scream obscenities from the stage (high comedy). Truthfully, I really don’t quite know what got into either of them, but there was always much beer involved, and so who knew what would happen next.

God I love show business.