jad1

The Pats, a good team, were spanked by the Bengals last week, who were in turn spanked by the Falcons rookie QB on Saturday. Good teams lose and look bad in preseason too. Bledsoe has looked very good getting the ball out quickly on first and second downs. His problems this preseason center around 3rd and long were the opposing defenses send numbers. The coaches will need to gameplan around this in the regular season, which they'll have little problem doing. Actually good teams make errors on special teams in preseason all the time, mainly due to the fact that many rookies play on special teams in the preseason. Last week, Tennessee, a good playoff team, gave up a huge return to McGee. Compare Williams' first two seasons to Pace's and you learn that Williams gave up a whole TWO sacks more than Pace did during that time. Going into his 3rd year, Pace didn't scare anyone either. Yeah, and if those were his only draft picks, and McGahee was going to be injured forever, and Williams was through developing (remember Pace), I'd agree with you. Many of Donahoe's choices have looked good this preseason. Kelsay, Shoebel, Reed, Losman, Thomas, and McGee have all had their moments. Throw in Henry and Evans, who will play well when the season starts, and Donahoe's draft picks are fine. I know it's hard after watching 3 games to tell yourself that it's only preseason, but that's what it is. Saturday's game plan was more about giving McGahee the ball than gameplaning against the Colts weaknesses. The coaches wanted to give the guy a real workload, even if it meant running some plays that were dead before they started. That's what happens in preseason, and that's why a good team occassionally gets blown out.

Without bringing in the question of patriotism here, the USA's performance is damning to the NBA and shows it as being a sport in serious decline. Are we really supposed to buy that there are only 5 or 6 guys who can hit jump shots in the NBA, and Team USA failed because these guys stayed home? What did these guys do before they were tall enough to dunk? And it doesn't end here. Unless the NBA bans the zone defense, this November our Olympic heroes will resume their version of Clank-Ball, and the teams will charge top dollar to watch these 75-67 slugfests. It's time for the NBA to stop drafting high-school graduates, because they've shown no ability to develop young players. Put an age limit on these guys and let them spend time in college re-learning the fundamentals, so when these basketball "stars" turn pro and are picked to represent the USA in international competition, they know how to hit a jumper against a zone. The NBA should lower their ticket prices this season as penance for their "all-stars" embarrassing the country.