Draft-Day Disaster?

The Titans drafted ten players this weekend. The reviews: Gigli-esque.

Mel Kiper: C- (worst grade handed out)
John Czarnecki: C (note the helmet)
Pete Prisco: C (pretty consistent, eh?)

Here are the picks, with my quality commentary:

1. Michael Griffin, S Texas: He played free safety at Texas, which is a need position. While he should help in many areas, including special teams, he was a second-round guy. Future picks show how Griffin will be needed.

2. Chris Henry, RB Arizona: The Titans must love him. Not a performer in college, but has nice measureables. The last combine wonder who moved up this far was Matt Jones. I think the Titans need another RB unless Quinton Ganther is going to make the roster. Could he be the next Trung Canidate?

3. Paul Williams, WR Fresno State: Solid WR with deep speed. He battled through injuries last fall. I’m not sure if he’s going to immediately contribute.

4. Leroy Harris, C NCSU: Kevin Mawae’s eventual replacement? Scouting reports say that he’s an eventual backup. A center never gets your fan base excited. Kind of like drafting a safety in the first round.

5. Chris Davis, WR FSU: Could be the punt returner and a possible future slot guy. I guess Jonathan Orr better rent, not buy. He’s compared to Derrick Mason. Mason didn’t turn into a star until his fourth year. Davis may not last that long in the league.

6. Antonio Johnson, DL Miss St: He gets the “M” for mental flag at espn.com. If a guy only starts five games at Mississippi State, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that he’s not that good. Ideal size and agility be damned.

7. Joel Filani, WR Texas Tech: Here’s another productive wideout who may or may not contribute. You can say bye-bye to at least one of the 2004 WR class.

8. Jacob Ford, DE Central Arkansas: He’s a small-school DE who might have to transition to OLB due to lack of size. I don’t think Kyle Vandenbosch is breathing much easier.

9. Ryan Smith, CB Florida: Well, the last late-round flier on a Florida CB worked out well. He has fluid hips. I prefer bone.

10. Mike Otto, OT Purdue: He’s an OT. He went to Purdue. His signing bonus won’t be large. He did start 50 games in college, which might beat the rest of the draft class combined.

I was a big fan of the Atari 2600 basketball game. What made the game fun was that when the computer got behind, it played angry, and much faster. That’s how I feel about the Patriots’ zealot free agency spendathon. They continued the insanity by picking up Randy Moss in an astute draft-day trade. Hmm, I wonder if the Titans have heard of this concept. Anyway, if you owned Randy Moss in any fantasy league last year, you are quite dubious about the prospect of him coming “back.” I actually traded a draft pick for him last year. No WR will perform well when your team throws six total touchdowns, as the Raiders did last year. Moss’s lax attitude didn’t help.

Moss averaged 87.5 catches a year in his first six seasons. In his past three seasons, he’s averaged 50. Any guy who exceeds 10,000 career yards before his 30th birthday is impressive. It’s the precipitous drop in production that’s startling. Maybe Moss turns around his attitude a la Corey Dillon. For the Pats, who were one near-perfect half from the Colts from winning the Super Bowl, the move was a no-brainer. I can’t wait to razz my Pats buddy who takes these things way too seriously.

Bring Me the Head of Merrill Hoge

Part of me enjoys listening to conservative talk radio. Actually it's not much different than syndicated sports talk radio, in that the host makes a "strong" statement and yells at the callers who dare to say anything other than "you're brilliant."

Hoge hated Vince Young before it was trendy. Wait a second, it never was trendy. He hated Vince Young ten seconds after the Titans drafted him. Young was spotty at first, but the Titans started winning. Hoge, in a gutsy move, stuck to his guns and insisted that the Titans were winning despite him. He mentioned poor performances in the Eagles and Jaguars wins. He mentioned that in the final game-winning drive against the Bills that Young mainly handed the ball off to Travis Henry. I guess the three touchdowns he scored in the game don't count.

I'm not focusing on Hoge because I think that he's completely bonkers. It's obvious that Young's accuracy needs work. He completed 51.5 percent of his passes last year. His TD/Int ratio was 12/13. That's not going to cut it for an elite quarterback.

I just wish that Hoge would pass on his selective memory for other players. Did he ever say that the Colts won the Super Bowl in spite of Peyton Manning? Manning seet a record for interceptions in one playoff season, and I bet before he hangs 'em up he'll have the career playoff record for picks. I doubt that you'll see that on the ring.

When you look deeper, you see that Manning's TD/Int ratio his rookie year was worse than Young's. Manning beats Young in completion percentage and yards per attempt. Young, of course, has the running thing going for him.

Hoge said that the Titans needed a 4th and 10 play to even stay in the game against the Giants. Who made the play? I know Mathias Kiwanuka let go on the tackle. I guess that's Vince Young's fault.

A quarterback, despite touching the ball on every offensive play, can't win on his own. Travis Henry helped a lot. Jeff Fisher and Norm Chow put together brilliant gameplans to help an undermanned team pull off some astonishing victories. I think the quarterback wasn't the weak spot, though. The season finale against the Patriots proved that Young has a way to go. I just wish that one analyst could admit that he might be wrong.

I'm torn about the possibility of Ted Ginn in Columbia blue and the other blue. While the team needs Ginn's explosive return ability, I don't know if he can cut it as a receiver. He's not large. He's 5'11, 178 pounds. To compare, Derrick Mason is the same height, with 15 pounds of added muscle. Ginn could put on the weight. He will put on the weight. Guys like Derrick Mason aren't traditional starters for NFL teams. Most guys are in the 6'2, 225 range. I wouldn't mind seeing Jamaal Anderson or Adam Carriker, because with the loss of Pacman Jones the Titans are going to need a much better pass rush. They can get by with scrub receivers, as last year's winning streak proved.

Heck, maybe the Titans will trade down with the Chargers as part of a Michael Turner deal. I wouldn't mind that so much. They have to get stronger on the defensive line, and yes, a receiver or two wouldn't hurt. They have enough bodies. They don't have a difference-maker, but Derrick Masons don't grow on trees.

Most Wanted Pacman

So Pacman gets to be the fall guy for the NFL's new unkinder, not gentle personal conduct policy. If you're an NFL fan, you love this. You love it because every NFL story written in the past six months has mentioned Pacman's PHD in Thuggery. You especially love it if you're a fan of the Colts, Texans, and Jags.

If you're a Titans fan, this is a disaster. The Titans have lost one of their few playmakers. Go ahead, name three Titan playmakers. You have Vince Young, Keith Bulluck, and, um, Rob Bironas? David Givens tore his ACL, meniscus, and broke a bone in his knee. He had to have bone plugs, which apparently are worse than hair plugs.

Wait, this is an NFL-based column. I went a whole paragraph without talking about Pacman. I'm out of the union. Sometimes a person has to hit rock bottom before they can change. Pacman's going to have a real opportunity to either become exactly who everyone thinks he is, or he will turn his life around and come back to the Titans at the Pro Bowl level of 2006.

I'm not holding my breath. How many players have come back after a year suspension? Ricky Williams is trying to make the shift after a year in the CFL. It doesn't matter if he never smokes a joint again in his life. He's the guy who smoked the multi-million dollar joint.

Part of me thinks that the NFL is being too harsh on Pacman. He hasn't been convicted for anything since college. He had a breakout season. In four months he went from draft bust to a near-miss Pro Bowl berth. If it weren't for the negative press, he would have played in Hawaii.

Let's compare our All-Pro Thug with another NFL legend. Leonard Little killed a fellow driver in an alcohol-fueled crash in 1998. He was suspended for eight games. He was pulled over for another DUI in 2004, but the charges were dropped. I couldn't find any evidence of a suspension.

With all that in mind, Pacman had to fall. The NFL was desperate to show itself as the tough, strong league. They can brush the supplement/drug issue under the table. They can also take advantage of fans' short-attention spans by announcing the schedule tomorrow. That is no coincidence.

Message boards immediately blazed with comments like "he will never serve the entire suspension." Have you ever heard of an NFL suspension being shortened? If a player fails a drug test, they get four games off. No question. Pacman is gone. He can spend more time with his daughter, or hang out at his house in Nashville, or Atlanta, or the condo in Miami. Relax. Stay in shape. Stay out of the press.

The missing links

Tom Brady was the greatest playoff QB in history. Then he met Champ Bailey. And last year, irony of ironies, he throws the game-clinching interception in Indianapolis. You can't win 'em all. Tiger Woods lost to a guy who couldn't beat Carl Spackler. The mighty can't help but fall.

I won all three of my opening week fantasy baseball contests. I'm even in first place in one league. There are times when you don't look too deeply into success, because ultimately it doesn't mean anything. Ryan Freel isn't going to steal 100 bases. My opponent isn't going to leave Chone Figgins in the starting lineup every week.

In my ultra-competitive GDR leagues, I feel like the girl who wins the NCAA basketball pool by picking the teams with colors that she likes better. It wasn't enough that we had to put our hitters in a batting order. Having pitchers in a starting order, one through five, along with a four-man bullpen, not enough. Nope, we had to add bonus points for starting pitchers, so if your number one starter outscored their number one, you get ten extra points, and so on. In the other league, to get the "feel" of a 162-game season, every week's result is prorated to a seven-game result. So, when the Mets beat the Braves 11-1 last week, it would have counted as seven wins. I think you get bonus points if your catcher has a last name that starts with a vowel and hits a home run on Tuesday. This kind of league makes you feel hard-core, but it just ups the luck factor. Breaking a one-week head-to-head contest into two different three-day battles just means that you have a smaller sample size. Smaller sample size equals more lucky breaks, not fewer.

I think Johan Santana could throw 62 MPH fastballs right down the middle and the White Sox couldn't hit him. He just crushed them. At least I have him in one league. I like what I saw from Javier Vazquez and John Danks, which is good since Contreras, Garland, and Buehrle all sucked in their first rotation turn. Long reliever Nick Masset still leads the team in innings pitched. Bobby Jenks looked like crap in spring training and has an ERA of 0 so far. Yep, he's on my first-place Yahoo team.

Single of the week: Starting Monday by Linus of Hollywood. Starting Monday, I might be over the hangover from a friend's bachelor party.

The Way Things Work

I have a friend who loves American Idol. He can't get enough of it. Despite this, I still respect him. In his mind, it's a quality show that maintains a certain level of drama. The truth is, it doesn't matter why it works for him. It works.

Most people think that Pacman Jones is a bad person. He's been associated with bad situations. He's also donated money to the city of Nashville for new firefighter and police uniforms. One does not cancel out the other, but we all know that bad deeds do not completely define a person. I refuse to let the constant negative media barrage affect me. Sometimes it does. Nobody's perfect.

Apparently Pac (as Jeff Fisher calls him) has distracted the Commish so much that the NFL couldn't announce its schedule today. It has to be his fault, right?

Frank Thomas got in trouble for a pillow fight with a kid. The NFL plans to suspend him for the season.

I'm with George Carlin. All golf courses should be given to the homeless. I've never heard Tiger Woods's 40 time, so how cool can he really be?

Who should the Titans trade for their first-round pick? Michael Turner and Asante Samuel are in the mix. NFL players are like new cars. They lose value once you drive off the lot. The Titans probably could get either player for a second-round pick, considering that eight figures of signing bonus come with the deal.

After three games, Nick Massett leads the White Sox in innings pitched. He had to mop up after Jose Contreras gave up eight runs in an inning on Monday. Tonight he pitched 4 2/3 innings after Mark Buehrle was hit by a line drive on his pitching arm. I don't think it's too early for him to get some MVP votes.

I love it that the Sox won when A.J. Pierzynski was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth inning.

Early season magic

The White Sox may have blown their opener, but my fantasy teams are doing well.

In the AUBL, I'm winning 11-0 in my opening-week tilt. My opponent just closed on a house and doesn't have Internet, so Chone Figgins has remained in her starting lineup. Good times. My fantasy-baseball-challenged friend Don released two guys currently on the DL (Randy Johnson, Chien-Ming Wang) when we have two DL slots on the roster. The guy's on spring break but he's more interested in e-mailing me all day and asking a thousand questions about an iPod. Don, go here.

After two days, in which most teams have played one game, we have some unusual leaders. Sure, Miguel Cabrera is number one, which isn't surprising. Xavier Nady is ranked number eight overall. The top pitcher is Felix Hernandez (how long will that last), and number two is the immortal Salomon Torres, leading the majors with two saves. Break up the Pirates! No one in our league picked up Gil Meche yet.

Congrats to the Florida Gators. I thought New England Patriots fans had big heads after three out of four Super Bowl victories. I think we're setting a new standard in over-the-top success. I watched about ten minutes of the finale. Ohio State might want to recruit some guys who can hit the three. That's my deep analysis.

This just in: White Sox suck

12-5? Are you freaking kidding me? Contreras gives up eight runs in one inning. Only seven were earned. Erstad and Kong hit dingers. I'm glad that there are 161 games left, but I'm a little worried.

The Titans met with Michael Turner today. Would they give up a first-round pick for Turner? I'd take Turner, despite the huge contract that would accompany him, over Marshawn Lynch. Corey Dillon visits tomorrow.

White Sox Again

The season begins tomorrow, which is cool. I still can't get a complete team roster anywhere. The active roster on the White Sox home page lists 24 players. Backup catcher Toby Hall is going on the DL, with unproven Gustavo Molina taking over, so there are two roster spots. I guess Jon Danks needs to be added, since he's the fifth starter. The bullpen seems to be completely different. I expect Jenks to close and Matt Thornton/Mike MacDougal to be the set-up guys.

I'm almost content with the infield. Joe Crede is a gold-glove caliber third baseman who hit a career-high 3o taters last year. Like most White Sox players, he doesn't like to take a walk. At least he doesn't strike out much. I'd rather the Sox trade Josh Fields, the team's top prospect, rather than let Crede, a free agent to be, go. I suppose Fields could make it as an outfielder, and the Sox will have plenty of openings there with Dye all but gone. Juan Uribe had an OBP of .257 last year. That's bad. Since he made two spectacular plays to finish out the 2005 World Series, I can forgive him one sub-par season. Alex Cintron is his backup, although he's actually older than Uribe. Tadahito Iguchi is a solid second baseman. Any time you can get 15/15 production along with solid defense, that's good. Konerko is solid. He has 116 home runs the past three years. Last year's .551 slugging was a career high. Kudos to Kong for getting the big bucks and still playing at a consistent level.

Jim Thome will be the DH. The Sox all but stole him in exchange for Aaron Rowand and a couple of prospects. The Sox got Gio Gonzalez, one of the prospects, back in the Freddy Garcia deal. I don't know who will be the backup 1B. Pablo Ozuna can play outfield and most infield positions, along with Rob Mackowiak and Alex Cintron. A.J. Pierzynski used to be one of my most hated players until he joined the Sox. The signing of Toby Hall to be the backup was a good move, although Hall may need shoulder surgery. He's going to try to rehab without surgery. If he can't make it back, expect a heavy load for Pierzynski again.

I contend that Contreras/Garland/Buerhrle/Vazquez is a top four without peer in the major leagues. All four should rebound from 2005. The bullpen is deeper and younger. Heck, there are only two players on the team older than me.

The Sox can win with their current squad. I don't know if they'll be strong enough to contend in a very tough AL Central. Offseason moves give me more hope for 2008 and beyond.