Wrap your mind around this foolishness:
http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/preview04/news/story?id=1868175# (SR sez: Those who can, do. Those who could, but can’t anymore make lists about those who did it better than them.)
If you ever wanted proof that NFL analysts are almost all blowhards, this is it. Who the fuck cares what Sean Salsibury has to say about Jerry Rice when he ranked Rice 6th?
If Jim Brown is so great for having compiled huge numbers for so short a career, why isn't Jerry Rice acknowledged as better for having shattered all meaningful records for receiving in a career that has lasted twice as long? Why is career longevity penalized, but walking away from the game at an early age is rewarded? Why is it assumed that Brown would have automatically had better stats if he had continued his career? Let's face it, if you come down on Jim's side of the debate, you should admit to yourself that it's at least partially based on the assumption that Brown's numbers would have been even gaudier if he had a longer career. If that's possible, what's stopping me from using Ricky Williams' college career stats to claim that he was capable of a career comeback that would have catapulted him past Brown if he hadn't retired? (SR sez: Ricky could come back. Right? Please say yes.)
If Jim Brown is so great, why did Barry Sanders get only 5 points, collectively, from these knuckleheads? I'm not saying that Sanders should have been voted #1 over Brown, but if we're accepting the "what a career he could have had if he hadn't walked away" argument is fair game, why the disparity between the two? Let's see--Barry had 3,000 more career yards, was All-NFL all 10 years of his career, missed leading the league in rushing his rookie year by only 10 yards, led it two other times, and gained 2,058 yards in the 1997 season. And again, before you bring your tired generational arguments, let's remember that Barry played in the era of 350-pound defensive tackles who could run a sub-5 second 40 and bench press 450 pounds.
I'm tired of hearing arguments about older players playing in a 12-game season. As far as I'm concerned, the shortening of the average players' productive years caused by the wear and tear of four extra weeks of play, coupled with the huge gap in athleticism between the "old" game and today's, are more than enough to make up for the career difference in stats.
(SR sez: Not only that, but no one seems to factor injuries or bad teams into the equation. A lot is made of the fact that Brown never missed game. Brown played for nine years at a time when a season lasted 12 games. That’s 108 games without getting hurt. Yahoo. Rice didn’t miss a game until 1997 at a time when the season was expanded to 16 games. Rice was drafted in 1985, which means he played 209 games without missing one. Rice beat Brown in that regard by 101 games. This may seem to hurt my argument but here’s the point, Rice got hurt, twice. He missed time, it could happen to anyone at any time (ask Gayle Sayers). Brown may have come back the next year and tore an ACL, which was a career ending injury back then. If that had happened would he still be surrounded by the same aura? I doubt it. Also, what if the Browns had started to suck like the post Young pre mature-Garcia 49ers did? How many more catches would Rice have had if he didn’t go through the Garcia-learning-on-the-job years? Brown was a great player, but the fact that he quit on his own has inflated his legend. Jerry beats Brown across the board in terms of career achievement.)
Joe Theismann's ballot should have been thrown out--he didn't even vote for LT, fer chrissake. Joe--in addition to totally redefining his position and being the best ever at it, he KNOCKED YOUR ASS OUT OF THE GAME FOREVER! You don't have to like it, you pussy, but you have to respect it!
Mark Schlereth made Elway #1 and didn't include Montana! Uh--Montana led 3 different groups of men to 4 Super Bowls and won them all, taking two MVPs in the process, whereas Elway, after a career of getting close but never there, rode Terrell Davis all the way to the Big Game (and an MVP trophy that will always look to me like a sympathy vote) and got his vibrating musical lollipop and heartburn medication ad deals. (SR sez: I’m also sick of hearing about Unitas. How many titles did he win? Was he really better than Jim Otto or Sammy Baugh? Yeah? Prove it! Well he has more passing yards than yer mom too!)
That is all.
(Unforgettable…)
Family, Sports, Politics, Random Rants: @bertoinpublic, facebook.com/interdisciplinarylife/
Showing posts with label Jeff Garcia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jeff Garcia. Show all posts
Saturday, September 4, 2004
Sunday, July 11, 2004
Dem Bums
Pessimism. It's a disease, an affliction of the soul. It rears it's ugly head for countless people, in countless places across the country, many of them in Boston between the months of April and October. Sports pessimism was large part of my later childhood. My stepfather is the ultimate sports pessimist. During tight games he would mime throwing heavy objects at the television, every once in a while he would launch a baby toy or a balled up sock. Though I will not discount his influence on me, by the time I was 18 I had surpassed him in both rabid fandom and sports knowledge on every aspect of the game save whether to take the Knicks and the over parlayed to Tampa Bay-Baltimore with teased to the final goals against average between Chris Osgood and Dominik Hasek, I did become a sports pessimist, primarily on my own. Ever since the Niners refused to resign Ricky Watters and Eric Davis, ever since Don Bebee jumped up and ran for a score on a muddy Candlestick Monday, ever since I saw Big Mac traded for Blake Stein and TJ Matthews, I have been a sports pessimist.
It used to kill my friend, the estimable DMJ, who was, at the time, the ultimate sports optimist. I tried to teach sports optimism in my brother, hoping that if I taught him well my own dogma would rub off on me. "Never leave before the final out. Especially in baseball, because you never know when you'll see something amazing." I told my brother this many times. Then, one night, we went to see the A's play the Giants in Oakland. Down two runs, with two on and one out, Tony Phillips was thrown out on the back end of a 6-5-3 double play. As Phillips got up to argue we started packing up. The scoreboard showed three outs in the ninth inning, game over. We paused and watched Phillips argue with the ump when the he got the thumb, PA announcer, "Tony Phillips has been ejected from the ballgame." "That's odd," I said, "why eject a guy when the game's over?" We were standing on the BART platform when we heard a cheer rise from the stadium. Then the station agent made the following announcement, "Ladies and gentlemen, Olmedo Saenz has just hit a three run homer to win the ball game." And we missed it. All because I lost track of what inning it was (and the scoreboard operator changed the inning graphic before the outs graphic). The point being, I've never left a game early since. You never know when Cleveland will come back from 20 some runs down to win in the ninth, when Buckner will let one slip through, when Kirk Freaking Gibson will hobble off the trainers table with no knees and one elbow to hit a game winning jack off the Eck. You never give up, you never leave early, especially in baseball where there is no clock, but even in football, because Garcia to Streets became the second biggest comeback in playoff history and I've met people who left in the third quarter.
Things have changed somewhat in the past couple years. DMJ has now become a sports pessimist while I have renewed faith. It started with "The Redemption Reception" (ridiculous name), and was bolstered by the "Botched snap, pass interference that wasn't." It was rooted in "90-O," and sprang eternal when Olmedo Saenz sent a Clemens slider deep into the Bronx October night.
Still, I will say that in May of 2002 I called for the A's to "trade everyone." The shake up that came in June did turn the team around. Strangely enough, the most optimistic sports fan I know is from Boston. I get to hear all about it when his Bo-Sux beat my beloved A-mazing-'s. Boston's sux-sess in the recent series against Oakland has not been at all tempered by the fact that his team is 6 games out of first. Still, despite the sweep, despite the fact that the A's are behind Boston for the wild card, despite Barry Zito's 4-6 record and 4+ ERA, despite Chavey's injury, despite the low OBP being masked by a higher-than-recent-years team BA, despite all this, I believe the A's can make the playoffs. I do not believe Texas can do it for an whole year (see KC 2003), I do not believe the collection of mercenaries in Anaheim can come close to the magic of 2002. I believe the West is there for us to win. Sure, Hudson, Chavez, and Harden have to get healthy. Mulder has to stay healthy. Zito needs more scented candles or pink pillowcases or teddy bears or whatever it takes to get him going again. Scoot needs to stay in the nine-hole, Karros needs to figure out what's wrong, Rhodes needs to dominate as a set up man as he has in the past. But I still believe the A's can make the playoffs. I say this despite the fact that I predicted early on that this would be the A's team to finally not make the playoffs after four consecutive trips.
Sure, my new found optimism has taken some hits. Jeter's shovel pass to nail a (still, no matter how many times I watch the replay) not sliding Jeremy Giambi, the inability of a pinch hitter to swing the bat, bottom nine, down one, with the bases loaded, the 49ers constant cap woes, the hiring of Dennis Erickson, all of these have dampened my enthusiasm at times. But I still have Josh Beckett in 2003*, Ramon Hernandez's surprise bunt, Billy Beane's constant genius. I still have the knowledge that there's 80 some odd games left, that the Sux will eventually Buckner their way out of the hunt, and the knowledge that there's always, always, next year.
* See the archives, I predicted Beckett would be the MVP of that series and that the Marlins would win in seven. I was close, they won in six.
It used to kill my friend, the estimable DMJ, who was, at the time, the ultimate sports optimist. I tried to teach sports optimism in my brother, hoping that if I taught him well my own dogma would rub off on me. "Never leave before the final out. Especially in baseball, because you never know when you'll see something amazing." I told my brother this many times. Then, one night, we went to see the A's play the Giants in Oakland. Down two runs, with two on and one out, Tony Phillips was thrown out on the back end of a 6-5-3 double play. As Phillips got up to argue we started packing up. The scoreboard showed three outs in the ninth inning, game over. We paused and watched Phillips argue with the ump when the he got the thumb, PA announcer, "Tony Phillips has been ejected from the ballgame." "That's odd," I said, "why eject a guy when the game's over?" We were standing on the BART platform when we heard a cheer rise from the stadium. Then the station agent made the following announcement, "Ladies and gentlemen, Olmedo Saenz has just hit a three run homer to win the ball game." And we missed it. All because I lost track of what inning it was (and the scoreboard operator changed the inning graphic before the outs graphic). The point being, I've never left a game early since. You never know when Cleveland will come back from 20 some runs down to win in the ninth, when Buckner will let one slip through, when Kirk Freaking Gibson will hobble off the trainers table with no knees and one elbow to hit a game winning jack off the Eck. You never give up, you never leave early, especially in baseball where there is no clock, but even in football, because Garcia to Streets became the second biggest comeback in playoff history and I've met people who left in the third quarter.
Things have changed somewhat in the past couple years. DMJ has now become a sports pessimist while I have renewed faith. It started with "The Redemption Reception" (ridiculous name), and was bolstered by the "Botched snap, pass interference that wasn't." It was rooted in "90-O," and sprang eternal when Olmedo Saenz sent a Clemens slider deep into the Bronx October night.
Still, I will say that in May of 2002 I called for the A's to "trade everyone." The shake up that came in June did turn the team around. Strangely enough, the most optimistic sports fan I know is from Boston. I get to hear all about it when his Bo-Sux beat my beloved A-mazing-'s. Boston's sux-sess in the recent series against Oakland has not been at all tempered by the fact that his team is 6 games out of first. Still, despite the sweep, despite the fact that the A's are behind Boston for the wild card, despite Barry Zito's 4-6 record and 4+ ERA, despite Chavey's injury, despite the low OBP being masked by a higher-than-recent-years team BA, despite all this, I believe the A's can make the playoffs. I do not believe Texas can do it for an whole year (see KC 2003), I do not believe the collection of mercenaries in Anaheim can come close to the magic of 2002. I believe the West is there for us to win. Sure, Hudson, Chavez, and Harden have to get healthy. Mulder has to stay healthy. Zito needs more scented candles or pink pillowcases or teddy bears or whatever it takes to get him going again. Scoot needs to stay in the nine-hole, Karros needs to figure out what's wrong, Rhodes needs to dominate as a set up man as he has in the past. But I still believe the A's can make the playoffs. I say this despite the fact that I predicted early on that this would be the A's team to finally not make the playoffs after four consecutive trips.
Sure, my new found optimism has taken some hits. Jeter's shovel pass to nail a (still, no matter how many times I watch the replay) not sliding Jeremy Giambi, the inability of a pinch hitter to swing the bat, bottom nine, down one, with the bases loaded, the 49ers constant cap woes, the hiring of Dennis Erickson, all of these have dampened my enthusiasm at times. But I still have Josh Beckett in 2003*, Ramon Hernandez's surprise bunt, Billy Beane's constant genius. I still have the knowledge that there's 80 some odd games left, that the Sux will eventually Buckner their way out of the hunt, and the knowledge that there's always, always, next year.
* See the archives, I predicted Beckett would be the MVP of that series and that the Marlins would win in seven. I was close, they won in six.
Thursday, March 4, 2004
End of an Era
Niner Notes:
Well, I am officially declaring the end of an era. This is it, the San Francisco Forty-Niners as we have known them for the past 25 years are no more. The team's last significant ties to the Bill Walsh era have been severed. It began when SF released the last remaining player from the 1994 Super Bowl team. I wrote a few months ago that these days if a player is to spend his entire career with one team he needs to be good enough to start, but not so good that he starts to make too much money. I pegged Derrick Deese as just such a player, but now he's gone.
The disassociation with Walsh continued Tuesday with the release of Jeff Garcia. I'm not sure how I feel about this one. It was always hard to believe that Garcia was as good as his numbers. After all, he played in a good offense, and had very good receivers for most of his tenure. Still, Garcia is a guy who defied the odds and made himself into a three time pro-bowl player. I'll also offer this: Garcia represents the last QB that Bill Walsh will ever bring to the organization. Walsh built his reputation on working with QBs and ended up picking three in a row, almost out of nowhere. In 1979 he picked Joe Cool in the third round, sat him behind Steve DeBerg for two years and then helped him become the best ever (yes, better than Unitas, and Otto, and Elway, and Marino, and anyone else). When Montana began to show signs of wear Walsh brought in an athletic but erratic Steve Young. Montana went on to win two Super Bowls after Young came in. The only thing that kept Young from being better than Montana was that he only won one title as a starter. He may have won more if not for the 49ers poor defense in '92 and '93 and lack of a running game in '96 and '97. Though many of his other numbers surpassed Montana's Young never got the credit, in part because he always looked like a maniac compared to the unflappable Montana, but mostly because he followed Joe. Garcia, for whatever his faults are was the third in a line of incredibly talented SF QBs. He led the Niners back from the dead. Again, following two Hall of Fame Super Bowl MVPs is tough, but Garcia handled it well. Of course he never had the pressure of playing on a team that was actually expected to win it all. Still, Garcia engineered the second greatest comeback in playoff history and led a couple of teams to the playoffs that probably shouldn't have been there.
The stamp of Bill Walsh is truly fading. The man who shaped the franchise for over two decades has finally left the building and this time he ain't coming back. As a 49er fan I've always enjoyed a great deal of stability in terms of ownership, winning, and knowing what the team was likely to do both on and off the field. Now it's a whole new era and its hard not to feel a disassociation with the team I loved as a kid. After all, all the players, coaches, front office personnel and even the owner are gone from the team that captured my young imagination.
Other SF Ramblings:
The interesting thing about Garcia's release is that for the first time in recent memory there doesn't seem to be a huge market for quarterbacks. It is a very small market for Garcia that is further depressed by the availability of Drew Henson. Here's a quick run down of teams that have QB questions:
-San Diego: Needs a QB now that they've clearly given up on Drew Breese, but they will likely take Eli Manning with the first pick so how much are they willing to give Garcia to tutor Manning for one year? Also, they'd have to do something with Breese.
-Oakland: Similar situation to SD, they don't need a QB right now, and they may take a QB in the draft. Besides Darth Raider isn't a fan of guys who can't chuck it 60 yards down field.
-Arizona: One of the few teams that might take a look. Still, they have Josh McCown and may want to go with him.
-Cleveland: Might be sick of both Couch and Holcombe.
-New Orleans: Aaron Brooks still hasn't lived up to what he showed his first two seasons as a starter. Still I don't think he's out of chances yet.
-Miami: Seems desperate for a QB.
-Dallas: Garcia doesn't seem like the kind of guy the Tuna usually goes for.
-San Francisco: I've never seen it happen before so I don't think he'll come back.
Is Tim Rattay really ready to lead the team? Who's going to keep Tim Rattay off his back? SF released Deese and Ron Stone. Can Kwame Harris and Kyle Kosier get it done? Who's going to play corner if both starters Ahmed Plummer and Jason Webster leave as free agents? Are Brandon Lloyd Cedrick Wilson, and Arnaz Battle ready to start? Who's Kevin Barlow's back up? Anyone think this team is going to the playoffs?
Well, I am officially declaring the end of an era. This is it, the San Francisco Forty-Niners as we have known them for the past 25 years are no more. The team's last significant ties to the Bill Walsh era have been severed. It began when SF released the last remaining player from the 1994 Super Bowl team. I wrote a few months ago that these days if a player is to spend his entire career with one team he needs to be good enough to start, but not so good that he starts to make too much money. I pegged Derrick Deese as just such a player, but now he's gone.
The disassociation with Walsh continued Tuesday with the release of Jeff Garcia. I'm not sure how I feel about this one. It was always hard to believe that Garcia was as good as his numbers. After all, he played in a good offense, and had very good receivers for most of his tenure. Still, Garcia is a guy who defied the odds and made himself into a three time pro-bowl player. I'll also offer this: Garcia represents the last QB that Bill Walsh will ever bring to the organization. Walsh built his reputation on working with QBs and ended up picking three in a row, almost out of nowhere. In 1979 he picked Joe Cool in the third round, sat him behind Steve DeBerg for two years and then helped him become the best ever (yes, better than Unitas, and Otto, and Elway, and Marino, and anyone else). When Montana began to show signs of wear Walsh brought in an athletic but erratic Steve Young. Montana went on to win two Super Bowls after Young came in. The only thing that kept Young from being better than Montana was that he only won one title as a starter. He may have won more if not for the 49ers poor defense in '92 and '93 and lack of a running game in '96 and '97. Though many of his other numbers surpassed Montana's Young never got the credit, in part because he always looked like a maniac compared to the unflappable Montana, but mostly because he followed Joe. Garcia, for whatever his faults are was the third in a line of incredibly talented SF QBs. He led the Niners back from the dead. Again, following two Hall of Fame Super Bowl MVPs is tough, but Garcia handled it well. Of course he never had the pressure of playing on a team that was actually expected to win it all. Still, Garcia engineered the second greatest comeback in playoff history and led a couple of teams to the playoffs that probably shouldn't have been there.
The stamp of Bill Walsh is truly fading. The man who shaped the franchise for over two decades has finally left the building and this time he ain't coming back. As a 49er fan I've always enjoyed a great deal of stability in terms of ownership, winning, and knowing what the team was likely to do both on and off the field. Now it's a whole new era and its hard not to feel a disassociation with the team I loved as a kid. After all, all the players, coaches, front office personnel and even the owner are gone from the team that captured my young imagination.
Other SF Ramblings:
The interesting thing about Garcia's release is that for the first time in recent memory there doesn't seem to be a huge market for quarterbacks. It is a very small market for Garcia that is further depressed by the availability of Drew Henson. Here's a quick run down of teams that have QB questions:
-San Diego: Needs a QB now that they've clearly given up on Drew Breese, but they will likely take Eli Manning with the first pick so how much are they willing to give Garcia to tutor Manning for one year? Also, they'd have to do something with Breese.
-Oakland: Similar situation to SD, they don't need a QB right now, and they may take a QB in the draft. Besides Darth Raider isn't a fan of guys who can't chuck it 60 yards down field.
-Arizona: One of the few teams that might take a look. Still, they have Josh McCown and may want to go with him.
-Cleveland: Might be sick of both Couch and Holcombe.
-New Orleans: Aaron Brooks still hasn't lived up to what he showed his first two seasons as a starter. Still I don't think he's out of chances yet.
-Miami: Seems desperate for a QB.
-Dallas: Garcia doesn't seem like the kind of guy the Tuna usually goes for.
-San Francisco: I've never seen it happen before so I don't think he'll come back.
Is Tim Rattay really ready to lead the team? Who's going to keep Tim Rattay off his back? SF released Deese and Ron Stone. Can Kwame Harris and Kyle Kosier get it done? Who's going to play corner if both starters Ahmed Plummer and Jason Webster leave as free agents? Are Brandon Lloyd Cedrick Wilson, and Arnaz Battle ready to start? Who's Kevin Barlow's back up? Anyone think this team is going to the playoffs?
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