Friday Frivolities at the Super Bowl Blog
Fridays are made for wanting to skip out on work early, about not wanting to do anything of substance, about wanting to tune in and check out. So that’s why the Super Bowl Blog is going to take a break from the usual news cycle of player transactions, injuries and training camp battles to give you something a little off the beaten path.
Check out Pro-football-reference.com and their Birthdays feature, located in the section called Frivolities. There you will find a function where you can get a list of the names and stats of every NFL player in history who has ever been born on a given day. Let’s take a look at today, May 30th.
THE TOP TEN ALL-TIME NFL PLAYERS BORN ON MAY 30TH
1. Lydell Mitchell
2. Gale Sayers
3. Gerald Willhite
4. John Alt
5. Allen Aldridge
6. Bucko Kilroy
7. Sam Rogers
8. Je’Rod Cherry
9. Ralph Pasquariello
10. Pete Larson
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Terrell Owens on the Raiders in 2009… Think About It!
Okay, so a few brief warnings about the blog you’re about to read. Basically, the news story comes from the Contra Costa Times, a Bay Area newspaper with a lot of time on their hands and some very optimistic Raiders fans. Also, there’s no real facts here- just speculation. But… that being said, when we saw this on Sports Illustrated’s Truth &Rumors page, it made the story just a little more legitimate.
And without further ado- Terrell Owens will be an Oakland Raider in 2009. Maybe. Possibly. We’ll see. The fact remains that T.O.’s contract with the Dallas Cowboys will be over after the season. The Raiders need another piece to the puzzle to make their offense really exciting. They already have new running back Darren McFadden and young stud quarterback JaMarcus Russell. If they can get a veteran receiver like Owens, then they might really have something. However, the idea here is that the Raiders would be interested in Owens because he fits well with the team’s reputation. Of course, they forgot to mention that Owens has done a lot to get that reputation off his back since coming to Big D.
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Mike Williams The Biggest Loser… In a Good Way
Mike Williams has been generally considered a disappointment since he entered the league as the No. 10 draft pick in 2005. However, things might be turning around for the Tennessee Titan, and that could be great news for football fans. He was supposed to be the next Keyshawn Johnson, a tall, speedy and physical receiver from USC who could go across the middle for big yardage for 10 years of great NFL productivity. However, things don’t always work out. For Mike Williams, the struggle has been many faceted, but one thing that has kept getting in the way of his success is his physical shape. He was largely (pun intended) considered to have bulked up way too much to outrun corners in the NFL.
So the Tennessee Titans required Mike Williams to lose 30 pounds before training camp. He did. He showed up early, weighed in below the required weight level, and has been impressive so far. Is this a new chapter in the story of Mike Williams? Is this a whole new book, about 300 pages slimmer? A whole new Mike Williams Cliff Notes, if you will? Well, either way the Super Bowl Blog thinks this is a good sign, and we’re glad that Mike Williams has made a huge effort to get back into shape. This can only be good for him, the Titans and the ticket buyers.
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Vince Young Almost Quit after Rookie Season
ESPN is running a top story in the football news day cycle about the strong consideration Tennessee Titans quarterback Vince young gave to possibly retiring from the NFL after one season. Young told NFL.com in an interview that the combination of family troubles, the pressure of being a QB in the NFL, the media scrutiny and the lack of enjoyment he found in the game made him think long and hard.
In the interview, Young said: “I really thought long and hard about it. There was so much going on with my family. It was crazy being an NFL quarterback. It wasn’t fun anymore. All of the fun was out of it. All of the excitement was gone. All I was doing was worrying about things.”
Even though we might not all understand the pressure of being an NFL quarterback, we can probably recognize a little of Vince Young in all of us. Did we ever want to quit high school swim teams because it wasn’t fun anymore? Did we ever consider a career change early on? I think we can all relate a little. That’ what might make Vince Young so appealing as a role model for young people.
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Finding Jerry Porter
The Jacksonville Jaguars will have the talented but troubled wide receiver Jerry Porter on the field this upcoming season, and they should be glad for it. Although things did not exactly go swimmingly for porter while he was in Oakland, the situation will probably be much more conducive to getting some solid football-only highlights out of this clearly talented pass-catcher. Read this article about Porter, and you might find yourself a little confused. We were. There seems to be some contradictions that need to be worked out. Here’s a quote from Porter during his interview:
“I’m embarrassed that I haven’t been over 1,000 yards. People try and discount the things I’ve done in this league because I haven’t gone over 1,000 yards. I’ve been the leading touchdown maker on a team (2002) that had Jerry Rice. I’ve been on a team with Randy Moss, Tim Brown, Andre Rison and Jerry Rice and still held my own. The things I’ve done have been overshadowed… I’ve heard people throw the ‘potential’ word out there. That’s true. At the same time, there are other factors. The quarterback situation has been a problem. Some teams I’ve been on the O-line has not held up. We’ve had teams with zero running game. We’d play action and the defense would be 15-18 yards down the field looking at us. Is it partly my fault? Indeed it is. I have no excuses.”
It kind of sounds like Porter is making a lot of excuses, then trying to sound like he’s not making excuses. Is it just us? Either way. The fact remains that this guy has the potential to really do some good things on a good team in Jacksonville. Forget 1,000 yards. Porter will likely go to the playoffs next year, and that’s enough motivation to get things done on the football field. We think he will, in a big way.
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Will We See Pacman at Wideout
Even though Adam “Pacman” Jones has not yet joined his new team, the Dallas Cowboys, at training camp, the idea of Pacman playing a little wideout has already been considered. Apparently he was a pretty good offensive player in college, he has the skills to handle the ball, and the speed to outrun defenders. He played some return man stuff while with his old team, and he even ran and caught passes while on the Titans. So why not? According to ESPN’s article on the matter, Jerry Jones, the Cowboys’ president, said this:
“In my mind there isn’t a player out there in a given game or looking at next year, that could make a bigger impact to take some of the heat off of Terrell [Owens] than Terry Glenn. I think potentially we could get some of those offensive plays that Adam ‘Pacman’ Jones ran over at Tennessee — he had 15, 20 of them, got in the slot. That could help us there, too.”
Would you like to see Jones out in a three-receiver set catching some passes downfield, maybe even playing a little special teams? Seems like there’s some demand for a play of Jones’ skill level. And he’d certainly be a distraction to the other team. Let’s just hope he doesn’t tire himself out. He was hired for his defense.
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NFL Season to be 17 Games Long?
Roger Goodell, the commissioner of the NFL, has been mulling over the idea of adding another game to the season. A 17th game. The Truth&Rumors section of the SportsIllustrated.com sub-site FanNation is reporting this as a hot rumor. The addition of another game to the schedule would mean lots- for the fans, the players, the NFL, the record books. For the fans, they’d possibly get one more home game to attend, so that’s a positive. The extra home game would apparently switch between the NFC and the AFC from one year to the next.
For the NFL, the added revenue would be great. The downside, well, if you consider it a downside, would be that the preseason would be shortened by one game, form four exhibition games to three. Another thing to consider is that the record books would have to be tweaked a little. “Most receiving yards in a season” would be an example of a record that might easily get conflated by the addition of another game to the schedule. What if the Patriots went all 16 games undefeated, then fell in the 17th? Some things to think about…
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The Best NFL Running Back Ever?
Usually we’re already knee deep into an article posted by a famous sports writer for one of the Big Boys, (ESPN, CBSsports, Sports Illustrated, Fox Sports…) but today we’re going to go for something a little off the beaten path. We found this little discussion at CBSsports.com, and even though it comes from a very famous sports website, the content is almost purely fan driven. A user has prompted a very lively debate about the best running back in the history of the NFL. While we can all name a few of the best right off the tops of our heads, this discussion gets right into the numbers, and I have seldom seen better cases made for some of these players. If you are a fan of Jim Brown, LaDainian Tomlinson or Marshall Faulk, then you need to give this discussion a read. There’s plenty of space for user comments as well, so feel free to add to the discussion.
Personally, the Super Bowl Blog thinks that the most clear and sealed-shut case can be made for Jim Brown, but make sure you read up on Marshall Faulk, because even among the elite running backs of the past two decades, he seldom gets the respect he deserves. In 1994 the NFL had a 75th Anniversary Team assembled, and these were the running backs on the team:
- Jim Brown
- Marion Motley
- Bronko Nagurski
- Walter Payton
- Gayle Sayers
- OJ Simpson
- Steve Van Buren
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Dolphins Target Offensive Line in Offseason
If the NFL Draft did not make it clear, the Miami Dolphins are using the offseason to improve their offensive line. Of course by now you’re heard somewhere somehow that they drafted an offensive lineman, Jake Long, as the No. overall pick. If that first pick did not make it clear that Mimi intended to change things around in the trenches, they also drafted several other linemen. With the exception of second round quarterback Chad Henne and sixth round running back selection Jalen Parmele, all of the Dolphins’ draft choices were either defensive or offensive linemen.
If you check out the free agent signings for the Dolphins, their tendency towards linemen is a little less obvious. They have taken guard Chris Smiley, and then, just reported on ESPN, they signed Steve McKinney, a former Houston Texan who has been recovering from a leg injury. McKinney used to be a starter in the NFL, but has been falling off the depth chart numbers since 2005 when his injury problems started up. Will he be able to help out the Dolphins? Hard to say right now, but the only thing that’s clear is that underperformers on this offensive line will have to shape up or get subbed out, because there are a lot of humongous bodies ready to fill in for the Fins.
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Random Pages from Pro-Football-Reference.com
If you are a football fan like the Super Bowl Blog, then you love the stats. You live or the box scores, the fantasy football point totals, the averages, the longest this, the fewest that. There’s no better place in all the internet to get your hands on some raw stats than Pro-Football-Reference.com.
But since today if a Friday, we’re going to use PFR.com to show you something a little off the beaten path. Head out to the weekend with a little random fact stuck in your head. There’s a feature on PFR.com that allows you to jump to a random page on their website.
Our first click brought us here, to the page for Terrance Bancroft Wisdom. What a name, huh? Although he wasn’t much of a pro football player in the NFL, he is recorded. He played in five games for the New York Jets in 1995. He recorded no stats in those games- probably played special teams or something. But we do know that he went to Syracuse, and that he was a pretty big guy at 6-4, 300 lbs. Try it out yourself, and then think about getting some football tickets to see some random and not so random players this year.
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