Mark Long Beach

I went to grad school at Shampoobanana aka Champaign/Urbana. I enjoyed the school, less so the surrounding area. I hope you enjoy your time there, it's got some great parts about it. Good luck with the Bills backer idea!

I DID notice that the Sabers pounding the Flyers in the playoffs was a regular occurance!

Couple funny ones from the article on 100 years of Philly sports heartbreaks: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/more....drought/1.html 45. Eagles take Kevin Allen with No. 9 overall pick | Apr. 30, 1985 The Eagles selected Allen, a left tackle out of Indiana, with the ninth overall pick in the 1985 NFL Draft. He was gone after one season and later pleaded guilty to one count of aggravated sexual assault. "He was a good player to have," mused Buddy Ryan, "if you want someone to stand around and kill the grass." Anyways, I enjoyed the article even if I didn't care about a lot of it.

Nice, Dibs.

Um.. I think the article was a very good one. Exposing cliche's that are treated as gospel by the anouncers and casual fans as bupkis is a good thing. Especially when shown just how incorrect they are with some good facts behind the explanation.

Ahh, the calm, deadpan beauty of it all. So rarely seen on the internet.

Interesting. Nice work.

Yup. Basketball is a much smaller team sport. Only about 8 players have any impact for the whole game. Getting one transcendent player makes a huge difference. There's a few of them in the NBA. But they need a couple good support people and a good coach. That doesn't always happens. But once it does, that group often succeeds very well for a few years. Tim Duncan and the Spurs are unusual in that they've won a lot of championships (4) but never back to back. So he's done it with different players alongside of him. Albeit with the same, very good coach. To further add to the streaky nature of the NBA. Even if you extend further back in history, You'll end up including the Celtics with 16 total titles. Three in the '80s and of course the streak of 11 in 13 years through the late 50's and 60s.

We already were a middle of the pack D last year. We ranked 18th in scoring defense. Yes, I do agree that we gave up too many yards, let drives go for too long, and didn't have many turnovers. But we kept them out of the endzone for the mostpart. I these moves gives us a chance to be in the top 10.

Nice. Well it's pretty clear that they thought they could get him into camp without using their last 7th round pick on him. The other guy they weren't sure on. Sounds reasonable to me. (although it would have "looked" better to have drafted a FB)

Thanks for the summary. Very much appreciated.

LOL! Nice.

After about the 3rd round I really believe that you have to pick the best player available. Statistically speaking, few players drafted past this point become productive, quality NFL players. I'd rather have my team trying their best to unearth these diamond-in-the-rough type players who can become good players than to draft a warm body to hold a spot. If we're that desperate that we expect a 4+ rounder to start than we're in way worse shape than our middle of the pack record over the last few years says we are. We already have enough bodies on our team. We're trying to supplant them with better players. Yes sometimes you have to draft for need, McCargo & Hardy as examples. But late rounders we'll be lucky if we find a better player than what we already have even in a "thin" position. Give me the best chance by picking quality guys, not quality positions. Remember, it's easy for us to criticize based on position, but the team isn't drafting position, they're drafting actual people with lots of flaws, most of whom won't have an NFL career longer than maybe 2 years.

Just so-so...? I think I don't like your definition of so-so. Andre Reed & Frank Reich are so-so picks? May all of our second and third rounders be that crappy.

But notice we've brought in two defensive starters(LB, DT), and a good rotational guy(DT) for our front seven through Free agency. So our biggest weakness of last year (DT) now has TWO new quality players. Two starters out of eleven. We also get two other starters back in Poz and Ko Simpson, Not to mention another decent rotational DE in Ryan Denney. So that's FOUR out of eleven defensive starters new compared to last year. All four of which are a significant upgrade over what we had. Plus better rotational depth. How many (quality) offensive players did we add through free agency or return from injury? Zero. We _have_ helped build the defense up. We still need to address the offense.

There's two points you seem to be arguing. I'm trying to clarify here, so as I see it: Allen isn't that good. the Vikings paid too much for him. okay, I think the Vikings paid a lot. I think that nobody will argue this. Now the question is was it too much? Shrug. I think that it's gamble, but it's a gamble that could pay out shockingly well. We've seen defenses that were strong enough to get to and even win superbowls despite a horrendous offense (see Ravens, Tampa Bay & recently Chicago) The Vikings defense has been #1 against the run for the last two years... Even if they get a bit weaker against the run, it could be more than offset by having significantly better pash rush. The only good offense in their division just lost Hall-of-Famer Brett Favre. They have the potential of dominating their division with a powerful defense. If their offense becomes decent they could move into superbowl contendors in the weaker NFC. Sounds like a worthy gamble to me. Allen aint that good: I disagree. He's shown to be a prolific pass rusher for 4 years, and is young enough to continue to be highly productive for another 4+. He is better than the Vikings current crop of DE's or likely better than the DE they could have drafted with their first rounder. The Vikings can already crush the pocket from the inside with the Williams at DT, so Allen will likely benefit even more by having other threats nearby.

Sept. 7 Seattle Seahawks 1 p.m. - W Sept. 14 at Jacksonville Jaguars 1 p.m. - L Sept. 21 Oakland Raiders 1 p.m. - W Sept. 28 at St. Louis Rams 4:05 p.m. - W Oct. 5 at Arizona Cardinals 4:15 p.m. - L Oct. 12 Bye Oct. 19 San Diego Chargers 1 p.m. - L Oct. 26 at Miami Dolphins 1 p.m. - W Nov. 2 New York Jets 1 p.m. - W Nov. 9 at New England Patriots* 1 p.m. - L Nov. 17 (Mon.) Cleveland Browns 8:30 p.m. - W Nov. 23 at Kansas City Chiefs 1 p.m. - W Nov. 30 San Francisco 49ers 1 p.m. - W Dec. 7 Miami Dolphins (at Toronto) 4:05 p.m. - W Dec. 14 at New York Jets 1 p.m. - L Dec. 21 at Denver Broncos 4:05 p.m. - L Dec. 28 New England Patriots* 1 p.m. - L

Wow, Anquan has a lot of fans here. I also like him, and would LOVE to have him here. I'd definitely give up our first. At #11 it's worth a lower end 1st and 2nd pick.

All I can say is: May he be a big fat ol' turkey BUST! Die Miami, DIE! Too bad you managed one win last year.

Good call. Thanks for pointing this one out. And good for Ross, I liked him when he was here. Always seemed to give everything he had. Our line seemed to play better with him in too. Too bad he got hurt.

and 62.5% of all statistics are made up on the spot.

Great DB's get you interceptions and cover sacks. They don't get your DL into the opposing backfield for a great passrush. That's all DLine (with some help from the LB's of course) Losing Clements... and one of our DEs, our starting safety, his backup, our starting CB, his backup, and our Nickelback. But it's all Clements...

Yeah, I was also surprised by his play late in the season. Unfortunately it didn't last long. With our weak TE depth he's still got a shot at making the roster.

Well for certain, Fowler is still one of our best 5 lineman. Another good thing, the oline is NO LONGER the weakest position on our team. Thank God for that. It's been horrible for the previous 5 years or so. Of course, we have precious little depth. Preston and Whittle. Not much. So we clearly still need more draft choices to pick up a few lineman and hope we hit on one. Still I'm happy that we've managed to upgrade to at least a middle-of-the road OL!

Our long snapper, he screws up a couple important times and he's gone. Wish we has Schnek back, very few screw-ups with him.