Urban Meyer just wins games!

 

Since I usually spend most of my posting efforts disagreeing with Mike Florio, I may as well mention some of the times where I do actually agree with him.

And the 'mistreatment' of Tim Tebow is one of those occasions. Take it away, Florio:

As Florida coach Urban Meyer takes his much-hyped leave of absence, we hope that Meyer spends some of his down time reflecting on his biggest failure.

Tim Tebow.

After the Gators won two national championships in three seasons with Tebow at quarterback, Meyer owed a huge debt to Tebow.  And Meyer should have spent all of 2009 attempting to repay it.

He didn't.

So Tebow left Gainseville with a release slower than Byron Leftwich in a vat of molasses, and overall football mechanics far uglier than Vince Young's Uncle Rico sidearm release.

It's therefore no surprise that Tebow is in the process of changing his throwing motion, according to Adam Schefter of ESPN.  What's surprising is that few are calling out Meyer for not doing anything and everything he could in 2009 to help make Tebow into a more marketable NFL quarterback.

Since Tebow isn't injured, he's using the belated effort to become a pro-style quarterback as an excuse not to throw at the Scouting Combine.  The obvious goal for Tebow is to avoid doing more damage to his draft stock -- the obvious response in light of his Senior Bowl-week performance is whether it's possible for any further damage to be done.

Though Tebow seems to be trying hard not to point a finger at Meyer for the quarterback's current predicament, this quote tells us everything we need to know:  "I've never been asked to shorten or quicken my release and not have a loop in it."

As the usually-sunny Joe Theismann said three weeks ago, the situation shows that Meyer and his staff have "no clue" as to the process for preparing a quarterback for the NFL.  And while some of the Florida fans in the crowd might respond by saying that Urban Meyer's only duty is to prepare players to play college football, look for Nick Saban and every other coach in the SEC to take a DVD of Tebow's throwing motion into the homes of every high-end quarterback recruit for as long as Meyer remains the Florida coach.  They'll all be making the case to the kid and his family that, if he hopes to play in the NFL, he'd better not go to Gainseville.

If you don't think that'll eventually impact the performance of Meyer's team, then you simply don't understand how college football actually works.

Meanwhile, Tebow will be left to his own devices to get an education into how pro football actually works.  During his four years with Meyer, Tebow apparently learned absolutely nothing.

The bold in the third-to-last paragraph is for emphasis. Urban Meyer could have kept his same system. He could have still taught Tebow how to take a snap and throw like someone who has played football before and all that jazz, but he didn't. He just didn't bother. In fact, I've read that his mechanics actually regressed at Florida (can't seem to find that link at this point). Urban Meyer rode the Tebow horse as far as he could while standing by idly and watching Timmy forget how to actually throw a ball. Tebow's always been scattershot with his passes...but aside from that annihilation of a stout (that's dripping with sarcasm) Cincinnati defense, he's been even more so this season.

As for the dumbass commenters on PFT...they come out of the woodwork to bash everything on that site with their own personal brand of stupid. "Urban Meyer's job is to win games"...yes. It is. And if he scares off future QB recruits, he's going to have a hell of a time doing that in a couple years. Assuming he's still coaching at that point. As to Florio's contentions that Nick Saban and Co. will send DVDs of Tebow's throwing motions to recruits and explain to the families that Gainesville is not the place to send a young QB with NFL aspirations...well, they don't even have to. ESPN has done that for them in bright fucking neon. Even casual fans seem to know at this point that Urban Meyer's system is not the place for a future pro-QB to ply his trade, regardless of how true or untrue that sentiment actually is. Alex Smith can throw, but nobody really knows about him. But they sure know about Tebow.

Meyer did not have to sacrifice much to prepare Tebow for life after college. But he didn't. Sure, he gets on TV and says "Tim is a winner and a great football player and anyone who can't see that is blind" and all of that good stuff, but pro scouts don't give the slightest of damns about what Urban Meyer thinks. They are more concerned about Tebow's quixotic throwing motion than his "intangibles" and "winniness" and "fuckdominance" and everything else that he used to beat the Citadel. And it can be argued that Meyer has contributed more bad than good.

Hey NFL

 

You tell 'em, Lamarr! Those labor practices are so unfair!

So, it really is looking like the NFL will proceed into the 2011 season without a salary cap. And while I'm not going to break down the ramifications (Profootballtalk.com has some good takes on how some of the free agency changes will play out), I do think that the uncapped year would be bad for the NFL. Probably not nearly as bad as it has been for MLB, since the NFL brings in so much more money that you can't even compare the two, but I do think it will be bad. Some teams won't spend anything and will essentially tank for a profit, which I believe will be a much bigger problem than Dan Snyder outspending everybody else on a few free agents. He already does that as-is and gets away with it through cap manipulation techniques that involve healthy signing bonuses. And they still suck. At least Chris Cooley makes good videos. 

Anyway...the deadline is some point in March, and the negotiation necessary for this just isn't going to take place in a month. The players want more money, the owners want to give them less money. And I see both arguments to a point...while the league is player-driven and these guys do risk their health and the owners are making great money and all that, the fact is that they can go and work somewhere else. Supply and demand. Someone will take their place. That's just how businesses work. Although, to be fair, the NFL isn't your normal business. Maybe the owners will remember that the next time they ask taxpayers to build them a new stadium. Yeah, I'm sure they will.

Regardless, this impasse could lead to a lockout. Or maybe a strike. Not sure how it would work. Anyway, it could happen. It's happened in the past. It would be brutal to the owners and probably tragic to the players, who I think would certainly cave first. The NFL would recover, of course, because, well...it's football. But it would not look good. And it can be avoided for now. Why don't yinz just essentially "franchise" each other? Take the current contract and extend it for one year. More time is obviously necessary here. Extend the current deal for one year and continue negotiating for the long term through March 2011. 

Or, hope for the best and wish on falling stars and all of that jazz with your billion dollar industry. Your call!

Same old Bengals!

 

So, the Bengals apparently just will not learn. They refuse to learn. They signed another criminal! Matt Jones! Did some coke! Drank a beer! Same old motherf-ing Bengals, right?

Guhhh. I hate this line of reasoning, as I've expressed previously. I don't really care what these guys do off the field in MOST circumstances. I do understand the fears of a backlash for signing, say, Donte Stallworth. However, the main reason that I would not take this "risk" and sign Stallworth is because he simply isn't that good. He's never been all that great. But Matt Jones? Matt Jones has been pretty good. His last season had very similar stats to that of Santonio Holmes, and they were accumulated over 12 games, as he sat out 4 for a substance abuse suspension. He's pretty good. And he's really tall and fast and wears awesome beaters, as shown above. 

Matt Jones did some coke and he was arrested for it, sure. And it was quite a bit of cocaine. 6 grams to be exact. For reference, an 8-ball of coke consists of an eighth of an ounce, or about 3.5 grams. They cost about $250. I'm going to assume that Jones and his cohorts bought two eight-balls and had used a gram when the law showed up on the scene. He had two guys with him. And I'm pretty confident that three somewhat-experienced users can go through an eight-ball (or more) in a single session. While it's probably not good to have a WR that can be described as an "experienced coke user", that's life in the salary-capped NFL. That's how you win. You take chances and hope that they pan out. Jones is coming in at the vet minimum. And he's not going to harm your team on the field, unless he brings 10 grams into the huddle and shares it with the team. 

Oddly enough, the Jags had no problem with his coke use. They didn't cut him until he violated his probation by drinking a beer on a golf course. That was the final straw. Sure, it was stupid of him to do, but come on. That's where you draw the line? Let's see what Doug Farrar has to say about the Bengals and their character.

If there's one thing the Cincinnati Bengals have led the NFL in over the last decade, it's arrests. (I stopped counting at ten). The 2009 Bengals made the playoffs for the second time in the last 20 years with more character than they'd had in years -- it was how they could overcome the in-season passings of receiver Chris Henry and the wife of defensive coordinator Mike Zimmer.

Oh, last season was their big character year? The year they brought back Chris Henry and drafted Andre Smith? I had thought that 2007 was the first character year, no? What about last year when those Bengals team chemistry-ed their way to a 4-12 season? I'm not buying some newfound chemistry as the reason that this team overcame those tragedies above. Also, they weren't really that great following Henry's death. They couldn't even compete with the Jets. I'm not buying team chemistry as one of the reasons for their resurgence. I think it had to do a lot with some defensive improvements and also due to a good deal of luck following the Denver fluke that beat them in week one. Really, their offense was not that good at any point in the season.

Linebacker Rey Maualuga recently pled guilty to a drunken driving charge, but he responded by arranging to check into the Betty Ford Center, which seems like a standup reaction. 

Oh, that's fun. At least he did the stand-up think and took the route that he was likely advised to take because it would look good in court. I'm not going to jump on a guy for a DUI, but dismissing it because he checked into rehab seems a bit disingenuous. 

However, if recent news is accurate, we could be looking at a couple of new residents in Marvin Lewis' Home for Troubled NFL Youth. MJD detailed the team's dalliances with Pacman Jones, and Cincy's also been talking with former Jacksonville Jaguars receiver Matt Jones, about a contract (Update: According to several reports coming down the pike Friday morning, Jones chose the Bengals over the Tennessee Titans).

I've already gone over my love affair with the idea of bringing in Pacman Jones. He's not a trouble-maker on the field. Compare this with a guy like Joey Porter, who did assault Levi Jones in a casino but still hasn't made headlines for any egregious legal violation. Yet, the Dolphins can't stand him to the point where they are going to cut him if they haven't already (some weird cap situation is making it difficult). Porter was a malcontent due to the fact that he wasn't being used on every down and he reportedly refused to come off of the field more than once. Imagine Joey Porter refusing to come off of the field when Dick LeBeau tries to insert a sub on 3rd and 12. That's how you set an example for the young guys. I'll take my chances with the coke user.

Jones and Jones are cheap and easy to cut. Joey Porter and a guy like T.O. come with $5 million dollar a year deals and as in Porter's case, are sometimes very difficult to simply release. Take your chances with the cheap guys. You have to with a salary cap in place. You need every edge you can get.





Jones, who's been unemployed since the Jags released him last March, seems like the better risk. Jones had issues with the law (his violation of a plea agreement for "drinking while golfing" is particularly priceless -- I have many friends who subscribe to the theory that if drinking while golfing is wrong, they don't want to be right), and his work ethic has been justifiably questioned, but he's a freakish physical talent who can produce on the rare occasions when his head's been screwed on straight. He caught a career-high 65 passes for 761 yards in 2008, leading the team in both categories, before his story went south. The Bengals are now more of a run-first team than they've been in previous seasons, but they've struggled to find consistent production alongside Chad Ochocinco(notes). If he's seen the errors of his ways and can bring his best to the table, Jones could be an extreme bargain. The reported one-year, $700,000 contract means that the Bengals aren't out too much if they're wrong.

Abso-fucking-lutely. I disagree with his overall tone of "hey, look at the Bengals! Haha they're criminals!", as it's simple and it has been beaten to death over the years, but I think he put it pretty well here. This is low-risk high-reward. I was in the "sign Jones" camp for the Steelers before this past season, although they really didn't need him and as of now I don't want him to impede on Sweed, but for the Bengals? This is perfect for them. Now they can use that draft pick somewhere else. Or at least have some insurance for it. On this note...a perfect LB for the Steelers? Don't laugh, but I'm going to throw out Odell Thurman's name. He'll be league minimum. He's in the UFL and has by all accounts gotten it at this point.  And he played well with the Bengals in his rookie year before his DUI troubles. Seems like a common theme. Anyway, I think it would be a good move for the Steelers.




Personally, I'd be more surprised if Pacman Jones catches on with the Bengals beyond a reserve role. Not only is his history of legal issues far more complex, but he did very little in his first comeback with the Cowboys in 2008.

Guh. He did quite well with the Cowboys given the fact that he was out of football for an entire year. Here's what I wrote about Pacman:

"Ok...why did Dallas cut him if he was so good, then?"

I don't know. I can't tell you that. I'm thinking that Jerry Jones simply felt betrayed and that combined with the fact that the Cowboys had a bunch of young corners that they were thrilled with left him to choose cutting PMJ. By many accounts, Pacman was their best corner last year. I don't know why he was cut. Nor do I care at this point.

Again, I don't know what went on there. But I still think he's worth a flyer. Dallas didn't lose any games because Pacman was on the roster.



On top of that, the team is also reportedly interested in receiver Donte Stallworth, who was recently reinstated by Commissioner Roger Goodell after serving 24 days in jail for killing a man while driving drunk. Stallworth was suspended for the 2009 season, was released by the Browns right after his reinstatement, and is on the market. Are the Bengals just doing their due diligence, or are they interested in returning to the worst of their "America's Most Wanted" days?

They want good players at good values. That's it. There is no desire to assemble the most criminally-active team in the NFL. They all just seem to have alcohol problems. Just keep them from going out on Saturday night and I think that they'll be ok. More importantly...they won't lose any games this year because Pacman Jones makes it rain.

Sometimes it snows in February

 

Ok. We've gone over global warming before with the assistance of a Venn Diagram, although for some reason Blogger decided to remove my penis-laden Venn image at the end. That decision leaves me decidedly nonplussed. Hey Blogger...blow me. Or delete my blog. I don't care. Just don't touch my penis images.

Anyways, it has snowed quite a bit. Record snow. In the Northeast United States. In February. And all I'm reading is "where's Al Gore", "30 inches of global warming residue", and "holy fuck it's snowing a lot". Now, there is a lot to be said negatively about Al Gore, not so much as the message is concerned but mainly how he's got quite the vested financial interest in many of these foundations and whatnot that he is largely responsible for creating. I wouldn't care if he were just some hippie that drove around in a flower-painted van extolling the virtues of 'green' energy (of which there are many, many, many virtues regardless of who's right about global warming, but that's a story for a different time and maybe following a different generic energy drink), but he's more than that. I also don't really care if he takes a hybrid car or emits 19,000 pounds of CO2 in a fetus-powered hover-jet. Moving on.

SNOW IS FUCKING RAIN. You don't usually get this much snow because the cold air is not wet enough to make it! It's cold as balls in Barrow, Alaska, yet they received about 0.3 inches of snow during this same time period. Why? Because they are in a desert! Regardless of how cold it gets, it isn't going to snow there because the cold air is too dry to make fluffy blizzard snow. And cold has nothing to do with how much snow you get.

On DC's snowiest day, the temperature recorded was a high of 37 and a low of 32. The average daily high is 45 and the average low is 28. Brrrr! What a crazy occurrence! Two degrees below average on the whole! The next day, however, was 10 degrees below average and also got pounded with snow. BUT, the high was in the 30s and the low was under 20. The next day? 12 degrees below average and not a trace of snow. This leads me to believe that sometime during the day prior, it stopped snowing and got cold as balls. Because the warmer, moister air was moving out. I'm not a weatherologist, but...I mean, come on now. Snow in Washington DC in February does not disprove man-made global God-damned warming. It proves or disproves nothing outside of the fact that it was cold enough to snow and the air happened to be very moist. If anything, the moist February air is probably much, much rarer than days in DC that are cold enough to produce snow. Which leads me to formulate my new theorem...we are suffering Jeff Reed-induced "global moistening".

Every time that drunk kicker pisses in public, there is going to be some evaporation. And that piss-air has to go somewhere. Introduce some kind of weathery El Niño jetstream and you've got Jeff Reed pissing all over metro Baltimore, only this time it happens more than the standard once per year. And there is no amount of young men with families that Ray Lewis can murder to stop it. It's just gonna snow. That's just what it does in the northern US. It snows. If it's cold enough to flurry, then it's cold enough to blizzard. Would people still be asking for Al Gore if it were flurrying?

Randy Couture has defied aging!

 

Look at that old man. 46 years old. And he's fighting! Clearly defying the aging process, as Joe Rogan and numerous media outlets have noted. From ESPN:

Like fine wine, Randy Couture only seems to get better with age. Case in point: His dominating win over Mark Coleman at UFC 109.

Yep. Couture owned Mark Coleman, showing the young man how it was back in the day when they had to walk uphill both ways to school. In a driving acid rain. Wait...what?

Coleman's 45? 

So, let me get this straight. A 46-year old showed that he can get better at such an advanced age by...beating a 45-year old? How does that work? Does a 90-year old beating an 87-year old in a 100 meter dash prove anything? Age is pretty much completely irrelevant here. You shouldn't mention it. At all. It had nothing to do with anything. This match was fought in an age-vacuum. Justice will not be served until Ken Griffey Jr. repeatedly cockslaps Joe Rogan into submission for even broaching the subject. Fine wine...just because MD 20/20 Strawberry Kiwi tastes better than the Orange Jubilee flavor doesn't mean that it is fine f-ing wine. 

Now, maybe Randy Couture is...well, let's not say getting better with advanced age, but fighting particularly well for someone over 45. But, we aren't going to be able to definitively say that UNTIL HE BEATS SOMEONE THAT ISN'T HIS AGE.

Chapping my balls, Rogan.

That's it? Really?

 

Yep. That was it. Pictured are Pam Tebow and her fetus Tim, co-winners of the 2007 Heisman trophy.  This was the ad that drew all of the support from the pro-lifers and the ire of the people who just want to abort every fetus? THIS!?!?! Fuck that. This commercial should have been spicy. It should have offended people. Then Focus on the Fam would be in the news for months afterwards. People would know them. As it stands, everyone's going to forget about them within a day. F that. Tim Tebow should have actually pulled his full-grown head out of his mother's vagina on live Super Bowl tv, looked at the camera, and told all of you aborters out there to go and fuck yourselves. "Hi, I'm Tim fucking Tebow, and I'm here to tell you that God has a plan for your vagina. Keep the doctors out, and let God in. He has a plan. Don't fuck with it. Seriously, mothers...killing your own babies? ARE YOU HUMANS OR GERBILS??? I'm Tim Tebow, inviting you all to SUCK ME". Then he winds up for 6 seconds and throws a bomb to James Dobson. Well...maybe not. Showing those throwing mechanics in the ad would be akin to actually showing an abortion.

But nooooo. There was nothing of the sort. Nothing controversial at all. Nothing to make everyone feel uneasy. F. That. I didn't wait for this ad to see that. That was stupid. That was pointless. A waste of $3 mil. I'd rather watch those accountants forage through the savanna for pants again. Gay gay gay. And to think, I would have helped the economy and countered the Tebow ad if it were racy enough. I would have gotten Braylon Edwards, wide receiver for the Dicksucking Albatrosses, and done a commercial for Jeff's Abort-o-rama. 

Got knocked up again? Wanna keep it from the parents? Come to Jeff's! Start a tab! Every third abortion is free. Hey Braylon, catch!

(Mark Sanchez throws fetus behind Braylon Edwards...it is picked off and returned for six)

That's right, every third abortion is free! COME DOWN TO JEFF'S AND TELL 'EM THAT TIM TEBOW SENT YOU!

What a waste of time and money. And opportunity. I quit.

Miami Pro Bowl better attended than Hawaii Pro Bowl!

 

Yeah, I hotlinked that image. Suck it.

Think it had anything to do with the fact that Florida Turnpike Stadium has 26,000 more seats? Yeah, so much more interest in the Pro Bowl this year. I turned $25 tickets down. $25!!! That's like nothing, I make that in three months for having an ad in the upper right hand corner of this blog. People still couldn't get anyone to take Pro Bowl tickets off of their hands this year. Why have the game? Just name the teams, have them come down and jack off all over themselves for the media and then send them home. Hell, send them to Hawaii and let them do skill competitions and play chess and stuff. I might pay to watch Bryant McKinnie horsefork Alan Faneca's queen. That's what Desert Camelfucking does, they just name the all-star teams and fly them to the championship site to be recognized. They don't make them risk unnecessary injury by actually fucking camels.

And I don't care if other leagues do it.  It's easier. Those sports that play 82 or 162 games a year are much better suited to play an extra one. There isn't the same injury risk, players can half-ass it without repercussion, and really, it's just not nearly as taxing. The MLB has a 162 game season. What's an extra game? Contrast that to the NFL, where one game is a big deal in a sport that has players struggling to get through 16. Hell, some players have never made it through all 16 games. So you can't just plunk it down in the middle of the season or anything. 

So, my solution (and a lot of other people's, from what I've read) is to save the Pro Bowl by fucking it. Just fuck the damn Pro Bowl. Save those Korean children the hassle of sewing up all those ugly jerseys.