A point for Obama

A nice line from Obama on Notre Dame football starts at 4:43 into the video.

Hilarious

The Sweet Confirmation of Excellence

While NBA success evaded all three KU players who made their debuts Wednesday night, there can be no doubt that KU represented itself and its championship well in the League. One guy started and filled the stat sheet whilst outdoing the #2 overall pick (MC: 17pts 7rbs 8asts). Another posted a 2x2 in his debut en route to incredible efficiency (DA: 11pts 15rbs). And the final dude had more conventionally rookie number but still good (BR: 7pts 3-5 FGs).

In all it was a successful debut for KU ’08, not so much for the respective teams.

Wildcat

This is a great development in Professional football: doing away with the notion that you need to have a single play calling focal point in an offense. Ronnie Brown taking direct snaps a sizable portion of the time forces reevaluation of the schemes used by defenses. Players who were previously content with playing defensive defense, dropping into a short zone to read the QB, indecisively reacting to play actions, &c, are now being called upon to react in time with the offense. Every offensive player has a role that can account for every defensive player, up to and including the back responsible for beating one man.

Base conceptual changes are rarely successfully executed and thus rarely tried, but the proliferation of deep backfields suddenly offers a chance to wreak incredible change upon defenses.

Imagine a league where Jerious Norwood and Michael Turner line up on the FAstlanta turf with the singular goal of beating one or two men. I mean you would Vick back! And Ldt, a known aficionado of the thrown ball, lining up with Sproles at his flank. The list goes on and on, and, fundamentally, there is no reason that a team should artificially sequester its top talent solely by convention.

AlphaOmega

Not to gloat but I think I nailed it when I talked about speed being the ultimate arbiter of success this year and in the future. We saw the emergence of Chris Johnson, Desean Jackson and Eddie Royal, the continued dominance of the Giants speed based pass rush and the delayed yet foundational birth of Reggie Bush.

We also saw the sad reality of the NFL and injuries; but we pay to see cause so cannot deny effect.

What really did this first weekend tell us outside of beginning the narrative of speed? I think it is clear that the myth of parity is just that. Coming out of the weekend we can clearly place the Eagles, Cowboys, Giants(maybe the exception), Steelers and Bears as teams that will vie. While the Patriots, Chargers and Colts are coming off sub-par performances they will almost certainly the three of them make the playoffs. On the other hand I think there are exciting things coming out of Buffalo and Arizona (Finally), and definite sleepers in Atl, Tennessee and Denver.

A final note: the emergence of Special Teams, long the domain of sparse yet stellar constellations, as a skill position certainly warrants a mention. Not only do we here have a another instance of the speed narrative, but more and more often we are seeing guys who do, or could, play a substantial offensive role fielding kicks. Desean Jackson, Eddie Royal, Devon Hester, Dante Hall, Darren Sproles, Hightower, Roscoe Parrish are all guys who you have to watch out for everytime they touch the ball, whether on an end around, an out, a kickoff, punt or fly, these guys are almost singlehandedly deconstructing the standard classifications of the NFL.

Our Heroes are Human

Super Nintendo and DA met up to relive some good times from the Jayhawker towers. Unfortunately, they didn't put a towel under the door.
If anything, this just endears them to me even more.
http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=3567481

Spreading the Wealth

People have alternatively decried and celebrated the increasing use of the spread offense in the college game, and there can be little doubt that this use has had a powerful impact on the pro game. A much bandied about stat has been that NE used the shotgun on more than half its plays last year and every team employed a shotgun three WR set. This is all fine and good, but aside from pulling offense away from the center (to the left I suppose), what has been the effect of the spread in college on the pro game.

I believe that what we have seen, more than anything else, is a revolution in the RB position. A back who would have been considered by every measure a speed back only 5 years ago, AD, is now planted firmly in the soil of the power game. More tellingly though, is the increasing presence of guys who would have been tracked as DBs in college, or from RB to DB in the college to pro transition. Jonathan Stewart, Steve Slaton, Chris Johnson have far more in common with Pacman than last wave of great backs from Bettis to Eddie George. Now an argument can certainly be made that backs like Marshall Faulk and Barry Sanders argue against this as a new trend, yet these guys are known far more for shiftiness than breakaway speed. Even the top guys, with bigger builds, in this past draft, McFadden and F.Jones, thrived not in pound it out style but rather as turn the corner guys in college.

In terms of strategy I think this trend will have the effect of eliminating the FB from the game, with the blocking back being aided by offensive deception teams will employ running threats as blockers out of one back sets, and spread offenses and check downs as the hedge against stacking the line in short yardage situations.

Not much of this is entirely new thinking, but the trend is important to identify, and my prediction is that this year will be the year that speed out of the backfield becomes a major talking point.