mjm3773

Graham and Brown never played together. Graham retired after the 1955 season, Brown debuted in 1957. Of course, in the one year without either, they fell from a powerhouse (which like you said, they were) to a 5-7 record. And then became a powerhouse again (9-2-1) in Brown's rookie season.

Absofreakinglutely he does. IMO, he is one of the top 10 WRs ever. He put up numbers despite playing on run-first offenses his entire career. And until the last few years with Cam/Flacco, the best QB he had was Jake Delhomme. The following blog post sums up the argument pretty well: http://www.footballperspective.com/the-steve-smith-post/ Plus he was one of the best post-season WRs as well: http://www.footballperspective.com/tag/steve-smith/

Well, seeing as Tebow is currently signed to the Eagles roster, it makes it kind of difficult. Edit: Unless you were being sarcastic and my sarcasm meter is out of whack.

Assuming he is fired by Chicago, I would love to see Trestman brought in as OC.

The issue Jimmy Graham has, and it may affect fantasy football as well, is that if he and the Saints don't come to an agreement, and he gets tagged, the Saints will tag him as a TE. But Graham is planning to argue, that because he lined up outside for 67% of his snaps this year, he should be considered a wide receiver, not a tight end. The tag difference between WR and TE is about $4.5M.

I've been a member here for 12 years, but mainly lurked, so never actually uploaded an avatar - even though I am one of the two people pictured in Why So Serious?'s avatar (unless it has already been changed).

Just because they are both restraints of trade in sports does not mean that one can be used to argue the other because laws are applied to similar sets of facts. But in this case, the facts are clearly different: a player suing his team for its action alone vs. a player suing the league for it's CBA with a union. The same ruling won't automatically be applied to two entire different sets of facts. Now if you wanted to argue something along the lines of the Spencer Heywood case, that might be different. And Clowney might have a case under the Rule of Reason. But even if he did, that just means he would be eligible, and your original premise that the Bills should draft Manziel still wouldn't apply since he has shown no interest in applying for the NFL draft. And finally, it was just Curt Flood. He has no brother that played professional baseball, let alone Major League Baseball for the Dodgers. A simple search on baseball-reference.com would show that.

His name was Curt Flood, and he actually lost (although his case actually paved the way for the later Messersmith and McNally arbitration cases). And those cases aren't comparable to this. Those cases involved challenges by players to the "reserve clause" in their contracts between them and their respective teams, and how that clause was to be interpreted. The clause basically said that if a player's contract ran out and he didn't sign a new contract, his team could basically renew the contract for a one year period (thus, he was "reserved" to that team and there was no free agency). The owners argued that the clause went on in perpetuity, so that they held a player's rights forever. The players argued that the clause only applied to the next year, after which they became free agents. That's how free agency was introduced to baseball. These facts have nothing to do with an already established CBA between management and a union.

No team will draft Clowney and if they did, they would lose in court. They would end up forfeiting that pick and most likely be penalized a future pick by the NFL for violating the Collective Bargaing Agreement. The CBA between the NFL and the NFLPA clearly states that a player must have three years pass between his high school graduation and when he becomes eligible for the draft. And before you start saying that Clowney never agreed to the CBA and thus isn't bound to it, the Supreme Court has ruled that a union, such as the NFLPA, negotiates not only on behalf of its current members, but for its future members as well, including Clowney. I can't believe this nonsense has gone on for eight pages.

The SA Winter Lager is a nice choice for the holidays, but my favorite beer, especially that it is now available in the US, is Smithwick's.

Well, God didn't care about baseball until this year, either. And he was too busy with baseball until October 27th. Since then, the Bills have gone 8-1. Maybe he does care about football . . .