- 11:23 AM
- 05/20/13
Jimmy Smith is one of my favorite Jaguars. A shame to see him end up like this, which I assume is due to his longtime drug problems.
He was drafted by Jimmy Johnson in Dallas as a second rounder, but they let him go quickly because of injury. If I recall correctly, he got a chance in Jacksonville because his mom prepared a scrapbook of his athletic exploits and managed to get a team exec to look at it.
The Jags haven't been lousy at receiver since he left.
posted by rcade at 06:05 PM on May 14
So basically, Tebow couldn't lead a good team enough to make them (not players nor coaches nor management) want him even as a backup ...
I think you're reading too much into player silence. Most players don't comment on major personnel moves by their team. Knowing how strongly Elway felt about getting Manning, it would have been foolish and probably career threatening for a Broncos player to speak out against it.
Besides -- it's Peyton Freaking Manning. Who's going to argue against that?
... nor a bad team enough to make them (not players nor coaches nor management) want him even as a backup. Maybe he isn't actually the leader you think he is.
And you're reading too much into what happened in New York. The Jets are a completely dysfunctional organization.
Urban Meyer and his staff didn't do Tebow any favors by allowing him to head to the draft suffering under the delusion that he was destined to be a starting NFL QB.
I don't know how you can say that, given where he was drafted.
Somebody should have been able to stop that Tebow-led unit. They had standouts on the OL and highly athletic skill position people, but Tebow never looked like a dynamic game changer himself.
Kee-rist. Now we're going to delegitimize his college career too, despite his Heisman Trophy and presence on two national champions? Tebow won in college because he was great at that level. The college game was suited to his skills.
Knowing what's coming is irrelevant if you can't stop it. Jimmy Johnson's Dallas Cowboys often were predictable too in their two Super Bowl-winning years. But opponents couldn't stop them because they were so much better.
posted by rcade at 09:41 AM on May 14
Putting aside his Jeter-like intangibles, which starting quarterbacks in the league would you prefer Tebow over?
Every Jaguars quarterback after David Garrard.
Tebow should already be on somebody's team as a backup. He shouldn't be out of the league already after what he accomplished in Denver.
posted by rcade at 04:32 PM on May 13
I was planning to go, but ended up watching at home.
I've never seen a leader bomb 17 like that on Sunday. It's a real face-losing moment for Garcia to do that after publicly sparring with Woods. These guys are too rich to care much about the money a late collapse costs them.
Garcia was on the 17th tee tied with Woods. A birdie puts him in command. What a moment to find the water!
posted by rcade at 01:07 PM on May 13
At the time he was fired for his role in the Penn State abuse coverup, Graham Spanier was the highest paid college administrator in the U.S.
posted by rcade at 12:08 PM on May 13
What a shock. I can't picture a Premiership without him at Man U. If he'd given the news earlier the whole season would've been a tribute to him.
posted by rcade at 09:26 AM on May 08
It's a jackass move, but I still think it's funny.
posted by rcade at 11:51 AM on May 07
Bubba Watson sticks up for Broussard. Sigh.
posted by rcade at 01:05 PM on May 02
I updated the post to reflect the player's age. Seventeen is old enough to know that a rec league ref is spending his free time helping you and should be treated with respect.
Before my son's soccer game last weekend, I saw some kids around age 11 who must be in a traveling league or some other advanced league. They were really good, but they worked the refs constantly. I saw a nephew's national under-17 team play some African kids a decade ago at Disney World, and the slightest contact made them fall to the ground as if shot by a sniper.
I wish the highest levels of pro soccer would do more to end the grandstanding, diving and complaining. Poor sportsmanship is being passed down.
posted by rcade at 10:43 AM on May 02
I can only guess they must be really down on Tebow. ... They seem so dead set against it.
I am beginning to think that Tebow isn't being brought to Jacksonville because Khan doesn't want the team here. He paid $760 million for the Jags, who have the lowest valuation in the NFL. A franchise is in Los Angeles would be worth $1.5 billion.
It isn't easy to leave Jacksonville because of the stadium deal, but if Khan can pull it off he'll double the value of his team overnight.
Vinny Testaverde has been training Tebow and said improvements to his footwork have removed flaws in his throwing motion. Maybe there's a little hope for Friar Tim yet.
posted by rcade at 04:04 PM on April 30
... and maybe the fact that not a single NFL team seems to believe he's a viable quarterback just proves GMs can be shortsighted.
I think teams are afraid to bring Tebow in because of the media circus, not because they think it's impossible for him to contribute.
Give another young quarterback his crazy run of success and playoff win in Denver. Do you really think that guy is completely out of the league a year later?
He should be somebody's second- or third-string quarterback, or in Jacksonville a quarterback with a chance to earn the starting job. He shouldn't be completely out of the league already.
Do you have anything other than the "he just wins" mantra his fans often repeat that leads you to believe he'd even be a decent quarterback?
I think the chance that Tebow will be good is greater than the chance Blaine Gabbert or Chad Henne will be good, and Tebow would sell 3,000 to 5,000 extra season tickets and put the Jaguars -- the team with the smallest geographic region and lowest marketing sales -- on the map.
posted by rcade at 10:52 PM on April 29
ESPN analyst Chris Broussard says Collins being gay means he's not a Christian.
posted by rcade at 10:11 PM on April 29
I don't think Tebow 'could' have been bad with with Jacksonville, I think he definitely would have been awful.
I wouldn't throw the word "definitely" around so casually, Skip. Trent Dilfer hoisted the Lombardi. There's a reason we still play the games.
posted by rcade at 08:46 PM on April 29
The lead story on NBA.Com is about Collins and calls his announcement "true courage." It seems like the league is ready to run with this.
posted by rcade at 02:47 PM on April 29
Lots of positive reactions from the NBA community. This is a great day in U.S. sports history.
posted by rcade at 02:01 PM on April 29
No team has ever won a playoff game after getting rid of Tim Tebow.
I'm disappointed the Jaguars brought in a new GM and coach who would have to be crazy to begin their time in Jacksonville by rolling the dice on Tebow. I wish Shahid Khan had kept the old GM and coach and forced them to make the gamble.
Blaine Gabbert stinks. He gets happy feet and can't make decisions at NFL speed. The Jags will be mired in mediocrity until they learn this lesson.
They could have been bad with Tebow, too, but the three years and 3,000 to 5,000 extra season ticket sales and marketing power of Tebow would've helped secure the team's future in Jacksonville.
posted by rcade at 11:29 AM on April 29
I don't get how someone could be as business smart and football stupid as Jerry Jones. He doesn't have the personnel evaluation skills to build an team. It's a shame he doesn't find some other part of his empire to ruin for a while.
posted by rcade at 09:47 PM on April 26
... I'm just being an annoying stick in the mud about stats, just like always.
It does not seem like an article worth applying that much scrutiny to. I looked for the underlying studies and came up empty. I thought we had an old link here including some of them.
One weird thing about youth injuries is that girl's high school soccer apparently has more injuries than boy's. I wonder if it's because the girls don't have another sport siphoning off the most physically aggressive athletes.
posted by rcade at 06:59 PM on April 25
It's entirely possible that football is much more dangerous than every other sport, but that doesn't say so.
Yes it does: "Football is the top scorer when it comes to racking up sport-related injuries." Other stories I've read about studies have the same finding. Football causes the most injuries in U.S. youth sports.
posted by rcade at 12:44 PM on April 25
Note to all - football isn't the only sport where injuries occur.
It is the youth sport where the most injuries occur -- at twice the rate of the next sport, basketball. About 63,000 high school athletes suffer brain injuries every year.
I don't know that football will die or that youth football will fade. But these things were never said when I was growing up, and they're commonplace today. I think seeing star athletes with scrambled brains and desperate lives in middle age is not easy to forget. Nobody would want their child to go through what Jim McMahon is enduring, and he was once the idol of millions. He's 53 years old and suffering early-stage dementia.
posted by rcade at 08:18 AM on April 25
Kind of a wonky link, rcade. Gotta have a "digital plus" membership to the Trib to read the column.
I'm not a subscriber and it let me read it with a free account. I updated the link to one that might work better.
posted by rcade at 08:05 AM on April 25
My youngest son plays Little League and soccer, and a neighbor told him yesterday he ought to join him in football. He couldn't have less interest. He sees it as a sport where people get hurt and their brains get damaged.
posted by rcade at 05:50 PM on April 24
Uncatchable, even.
Hate the unis. The two-tone helmet is bizarre, and they've tricked out all the numbers with a font that belongs on an '80s heavy metal album cover.
posted by rcade at 09:25 AM on April 24
At the Stars/Blues game, the capture of the second suspect was announced -- presumably on the jumbotron. The St. Louis crowd went bonkers and then started chanting "USA!"
posted by rcade at 09:27 PM on April 19
It's amazing any NFL athlete can stay in the closet with online gossip sites running any dirt they can obtain or manufacture. This story jumped from MediaTakeOut all the way up to the New York Post.
posted by rcade at 12:20 PM on April 18
I don't know any of the story here, but ouch. Cyclists are Ford tough.
posted by rcade at 11:55 AM on April 18
There's a photo of John Tlumacki taking the iconic photo of the downed runner.
posted by rcade at 02:44 PM on April 16
The coverage of the Premiership is going to be unbelievable next season. People from England should move here. They'll see more of their football league.
posted by rcade at 01:25 PM on April 16
I've been on both sides of the divide.
I think everybody has been on both sides. We all have different triggers.
A lot of the media keeps running the explosions as background video as they report this story. I think I've heard the first blast 200 times.
posted by rcade at 08:39 AM on April 16
The runner who fell during the first blast, shown here in a great photo of first responders, is a 78-year-old who was not hurt. He got up and finished the race. "I ended up second in my division," he said. "After you've run 26 miles you're not going to stop there."
posted by rcade at 09:46 PM on April 15
You call it dark humor. I call it poor taste and insensitivity ...
It's both. That's what makes it dark humor instead of normal humor.
I hope your coworker and her family are OK.
posted by rcade at 08:29 PM on April 15
The topic is the Boston Marathon bombing, not your butthurt over the existence of dark humor.
posted by rcade at 08:00 PM on April 15
You overreacted in that discussion and you're overreacting in this one. Stick to the topic.
posted by rcade at 07:00 PM on April 15
Some runners were funneled away from the finish line but didn't realize what happened and tried to finish via side streets.
posted by rcade at 05:48 PM on April 15
Tonight's Bruins game in Boston has been cancelled.
posted by rcade at 05:24 PM on April 15
The belief that anchored putters represent an unfair advantage seems arbitrary to me. The linked commentary actually uses the assertion "men use short putters" as justification for the argument against them. Look at putters today compared to Calamity Jane (the photo above). How many advancements in putters have there been since then? How many of them could have been stopped with the exact same arguments deployed against anchored putters?
posted by rcade at 12:54 PM on April 15
Why is an anchored putter a bridge too far? Should they make 'em go back to using these?
posted by rcade at 08:46 AM on April 15
The Masters should move the green jacket ceremony outdoors so the fans at the tournament could share in the moment. I've been at the Player's Championship when the trophy was awarded, and that's a lot of fun.
posted by rcade at 09:43 PM on April 14
I'm glad Scott won the green jacket instead of backing into it with somebody else's poor play. Those two putts he hit at the end were terrific, especially considering how shaky he seemed early in the round.
posted by rcade at 08:32 PM on April 14
In order to win the Masters, Tiger Woods "needs to really shoot a good score," says Paul Azinger.
posted by rcade at 08:48 AM on April 14
... suddenly having nothing better to do than pester a desk operator with an apoplectic telephone call.
If they have nothing better to do than watch golf on TV, how is it a poor use of their time to call in a rules infraction? The fact this is possible is one of the greatest things about golf. If I could call holding penalties while watching an NFL game, I'd spend all Sunday on the phone.
posted by rcade at 09:52 PM on April 13
He wasn't exempted from the rules. He lost two strokes.
posted by rcade at 03:18 PM on April 13
I'm glad this is no longer a disqualification. I enjoy the weirdness of TV viewers being able to report violations, but a two-stroke penalty is enough punishment for this infraction.
posted by rcade at 01:33 PM on April 13
Quidditch player keeps a firm grip on his broomstick.
posted by rcade at 09:46 AM on April 11
Good work, Grum.
What database do you and the Tepesch-touting reporter have access to? I want to know how many left-handed pitchers struck out seven or more batters in June while lasting 6 or more innings and hitting at least one batter.
posted by rcade at 05:13 PM on April 10
I love excessively qualified statistical achievements: "Tepesch became the first pitcher to post a line of 7 1/3 innings, four hits or less, and a run or less in his major league debut on a date as early as April 9 since the Cincinnati Reds' Wayne Simpson did so on April 9, 1970 at Dodger Stadium."
posted by rcade at 01:48 PM on April 10
Dave Barnett never got back to the Texas Rangers booth after his stroke-like episode last summer. The team replaced him and never told him personally he wouldn't be back.
posted by rcade at 03:54 PM on April 05
I post links because they interest me and I think others might find them of interest. I was ambivalent about Johnson choosing to joke about North Korea. I had no idea how others would respond.
posted by rcade at 03:52 PM on April 05
Or was it because you (and others) hoped/wanted someone to pile on should they feel sincere threats of violence and aggression from yet one more deranged world leader just isn't that humorous?
The presumption that I post links looking for a specific response is stupid and hostile.
How many times do I have to explain why I post links here? I get tired of being shit on for posting links, considering that so few other people do that any more.
It's like some people won't be happy with the place until no one is contributing.
posted by rcade at 02:26 PM on April 05
As long as missles aren't aimed directly where you live, who cares?
Some of the deepest laughs I ever uttered were at my beloved uncle's funeral. Just because something is serious and terrible doesn't mean it can't also be funny.
posted by rcade at 12:38 PM on April 05
It's funny as long as the brinksmanship leads to nothing. North Korea has done this before when it wants something from the west. They probably want Guinness Book recognition for Kim Jong Il's single-round golf record of 18.
posted by rcade at 10:36 AM on April 05
This reminds me of the case of Eric Frimpong, who remains in jail.
posted by rcade at 04:23 PM on April 04
Cool video, but the fan abuse we take as a given when the U.S. visits Mexico is pretty nuts.
posted by rcade at 01:29 PM on April 02
Orthopedic surgeons explain Ware's injury.
posted by rcade at 08:44 PM on April 01
Other students who attend school on scholarships still can profit from any work they perform during those years. Why should athletes be treated differently?
posted by rcade at 04:50 PM on April 01
Can anyone explain how this injury was possible?
Ware runs to cover a three-point shooter near the scorer's table, leaping high and 10 feet laterally in a failed attempt to block the shot. He spins so much in the air that he lands with his back to the shooter. With his momentum carrying him hard towards the sideline, his right foot sticks at an awkward angle and the lateral force of the jump breaks his leg.
This happens right in front of the Louisville bench. The players look over and recoil like people in a haunted house.
posted by rcade at 02:32 PM on April 01
Look at the mascot.
posted by rcade at 10:06 AM on April 01
I can't blame Astros fans for not liking it because they prefer National League baseball.
But as a Rangers fan I like having the Astros as a division foe. Texas has been playing divisional opponents two timezones away from them forever. The closest foe in the old AL West was Kansas City, which is 550 miles away from DFW. Houston and Texas are a 3-4 hour drive from each other.
posted by rcade at 09:49 PM on March 31
SportsFilter: The Wednesday Huddle
Garrard led the 2007 Jags team that went 11-5 and beat the Steelers in the first round of the playoffs, so it's not like he had no chance at all. He was a starter for five seasons, and part of the reason they weren't in the playoffs more than once was on him. His play was inconsistent.