With Samuel penciled in as the starter at LCB, Sheppard technically drops to second string and Joselio Hanson – listed here as Sheppard’s backup at LCB (William James is listed as Sheldon Brown’s backup) theoretically drops to third string for the moment.
Reid just said in the press conference that Samuel is the starting left corner….Lito’s position.
Holy cow, reports are that Samuel has signed a 6 year deal with the Eagles.
Lito is going to be PISSED!
A friend sends along this rumor which I will believe when the contract is signed. 50 minutes till the Eagles/Samuel press conference.
ESPN is reporting we got Samuels- for much less then was expected: 5 yrs $47M. others saying it's not done yet, but close.
But there is also a press conference scheduled at 4:30 (and he's in town)... not sure why you'd have a press conference w/ no news. This is huge news! There's a lot of rumors that Lito will then be packaged (one of which is to AZ w/ a 2nd rounder for Larry Fitzgerald). we'll see, but I think it would be great to have Lito and Samuels (both 27) at the Corners w/ Brown at Safety. Then go after Javon Walker and you've filled a lot of weaknesses right away.
also, looks like we are close to landing Clemons from Oakland (OLB/ small DE):
http://www.philly.com/philly/sports/20080229_Eagles_may_land_pass_rush_specialist.html
Heckert and Reid were busy today over at the NovaCare complex - terminating Jevon Kearse's career with the team, signing JR Reed to a one year deal and tendering Joselio Hanson the mid-level RFA offer.
The Kearse move was expected. The Reed move is interesting. Reed was flying all over the field in the second half of the season - particularly the Patriots game. One has to wonder what kind of player he might have been had he not ruined the nerves in his leg in a freak accident.
But the most intriguing development is Hanson. Did they signal their official withdraw from the Samuel stakes with that move? The Eagles are already paying good money to the two starting CBs and giving the nickel back a $1.7 million tender (more than an 80% discount to what Samuel is expected to sign for) suggests that the Eags aren't going to sign ANOTHER corner in free agency. The move makes further sense if the target is Giants safety Gibril Wilson in which case they'll have really solidified their secondary (but beware of Giants d-back castoffs not panning out for the Eagles, oh William Peterson James).
Hanson should be pleased. The tender is certainly a vote of confidence in him and his abilities. Jim Johnson loves his backup d-backs, several of whom like Clinton Hart and Al Harris, have gone on not only to start but play in Honolulu for teams after understudying with the Eagles.
As expected, the Eagles cut ties with DE Jevon Kearse.
Kearse was probably the second highest profile free agent ever signed by the Eagles, and is a strong rebuttal to those who complain that the Eagles don’t pursue big-name players, spend lots of their cap money on free agents, or seek what they believe to be the final pieces of a super bowl pie. In inimitable Philadelphia fashion, fans are ripping the Eagles and Kearse for being a bust. The same ones who demanded they make a run at him four years ago, and no doubt the same fans clamoring for an “impact” player signing now.
By the stats, Kearse’s Eagles career will go down as a disappointment. But what won’t be easily discernible is his impact on the Eagles defense. Kearse was one of the most versatile defenders in the league. He was a fearsome speed pass rusher, had the size of a linebacker, and the speed of a defensive back. The “Freak” nickname was well-deserved. Most tellingly, he played the “Joker” position (i.e., the jack of all trades) in Jim Johnson’s defense and was one of the few players that the team didn’t even dress in the last meaningless games during the 2004 super bowl season, which is the most tangible evidence of the importance the coaches put on his play.
What also won’t be recognized is that Kearse’s career was cut short because of Andy Reid’s boneheaded play calling against the Giants in game 2 of the 2006 season. In the first two games, Kearse looked really, really good. But the Eagles couldn’t hold their big lead against the Giants – cause Reid didn’t believe in running the clock or the capability to call a successful 3rd and short play - and the game went into overtime where Kearse suffered the devastating knee injury that lead directly to today’s personnel move.
ACL’s are often a two year recovery. Kearse suffered an ACL tear, along with ripping two other knee ligaments. Even with that limited mobility, Kearse played a major role in the goal line stand versus the Redskins last year that kept the game close and allowed the Eagles to steal at the end. Here’s hoping that he catches on with an AFC team and returns to a competitive level. Even half a Jevon Kearse is better than a majority of defensive ends in the game right now.
The Freak indeed.
This is a year when both Groundhog Day and the State of the Union address occurred in the same week.
And as it has been pointed out, "It is an ironic juxtaposition of events: one involves a meaningless ritual in which we look to a creature of little
intelligence for prognostication, while the other involves a groundhog.”
The Skins cut WR Brandon Lloyd the same day Bengals WR Chad Johnson was spotted flying into DC. Coincidence?
Phil Sheridan neatly summarizes the hits and misses of Eagles' free agent acquisitions: "The Eagles' history in free agency is a cause for equal parts hope and despair. It brought the team Jon Runyan and Troy Vincent and Ricky Watters and Carlos Emmons. It also brought Kearse and Howard and Jones and Steve Everitt and Blaine Bishop and Levon Kirkland."
The strange Brett Myers' odyssey continues. When last we left, Myers had people trying to recall when - if ever - a major league had been the opening day starter and become the closer in the same season. Now we are left to ponder if any pitcher has started opening day, closed the season, and then been the opening day starter in the following year.
And with all due respect to Mr. "I can't pitch on three days rest" Hamels, Myers is the team's stud pitcher. Maybe not the ace of the staff, but definitely the one with the biggest cojones. Penning him in as the opening day starter sends that message to Myers and the team - "Myers is not going back to the pen no matter how bad Lidge trips over his feet and we'er forced to throw Flash "my arm is going to fall off but I can't tell anyone" Gordon.
A reliable source spotted Bengals WR Chad Johnson on a flight from Miami to Washington’s National Airport yesterday. The eyewitness account, who was on the same plane, observed that Johnson shaved his head bald. No crazy dye jobs. “Must be trying to impress Mr Snyder,” suggests another friend.
We’ll see if Mr. Johnson going to Washington was for business or pleasure, but at the very least his presence could suggest that head coach Marvin Lewis’ no-trade declaration wasn’t as absolute as it seemed.
While the masses crave a big "impact" signing like CB Asante Samuel, Bob Brookover presciently predicts that the Eagles will more likely make a run at Giants S Gibril Wilson, a player more in line with the Eagles overall free agent strategy, i.e., he's a more economical signing/upgrade.
Plus, Wilson is on a division rival so even if the Eagles don't sign him it will cost the Giants extra to retain him. And if they do manage to land him, they weaken the Giants' defense. Wilson has also played under Steve Spagnualo's defense so he should be familiar with the overall Jim Johnson philosophy and the Eagles will have an accurate evaluation of Wilson's ability to play for them. Finally, going after Wilson and not Samuel avoids a brewing problem with Lito Sheppard and his contract dissatisfaction. Throw Samuel $20 million in bonus money and the Eagles practically guarantee a Lito holdout this summer.
A friend of mine routinely says that if golf were invented today it would be 14 holes long, and not 18. This story would seem to prove him right. Golf players and rounds are declining because it takes too long to play a game.
What used to be the Graham house organ is increasingly the Obama House organ given how gaga the national media is over the phenomenon of Barack Obama (or maybe it’s just the manifestation of white Northwest DC guilt).
In any case, the WaPost buries the lede in its front page story on the Democratic presidential race. Writes the Post, “After 10 straight defeats, she now trails Obama in overall delegates 1,351 to 1,262, according to an Associated Press tally, and faces a dwindling number of opportunities to slow her rival's pursuit of the 2,025 delegates needed to claim the party's nomination.”
Whoa!@ What? After 10 straight wins Obama is only leading by 89 delegates? How is that possible? More importantly why is his nomination practically a foregone conclusion? And note that the Post doesn’t report that given proportional representation in the primaries that even Obama won’t be able to reach 2,025 before all the states have voted, but finesses it to make it seem that he can do it and that Clinton needs to slow his pursuit.
And then for good measure the Post hands a full paragraph over to Obama campaign manager and Archmere alumni David Plouffe to crow about how wide a lead 89 delegates is: “Obama campaign manager David Plouffe told reporters during a Wednesday conference call that for Clinton to catch up, she would have to win Ohio and Texas by 30-point margins, and follow that with a 40-point rout in Pennsylvania on April 22. "This is a wide, wide lead right now," he said. "The Clinton campaign keeps saying the race is essentially tied. That's just lunacy."”
And yet, couldn’t the converse be said? That Obama needs to win by 30 or 40 points in those states to expand his narrow lead? The Post includes a thruway quote by Clinton’s husband meant to rally the voters in those states as some sort of counterbalancing view that confirms Plouffe’s assertion.
And then there’s the bizarre McCain story today about some sort of relationship he had with a lobbyist. It’s all very strange with the hook being that the woman lobbied McCain’s Commerce Committee and that his staff were concerned that his relationship with her would undermine his ethics crusade/reputation. And yet there is the between the lines subtext that they were somehow romantically involved, complete with ¾ length picture of the woman in an off-the-shoulder gold dress gown.
The Post can do better than this.
Congratulations to Ryan Howard who won the biggest salary arbitration award in history today - $10 million. Hey, he was only the NL rookie of the year and league MVP in two of his first three seasons. Glad to see his getting fair compensation. Now about that long-term contract….
Here’s NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell’s most recent letter to Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter responding to questions about the possibility the Patriots spied on the Eagles prior to their super bowl match up.
Note in the letter that the NFL Commissioner erroneously states that “The two teams had only played one other game against each other in the current decade, a preseason game in the summer of 2003), when the reality is that the Eagles and Patriots played four times in the decade (one regular season game and three preseason games).
How is it possible that the Commissioner of the NFL could get such basic league information wrong in a letter to a U.S. Senator?
Sadly, it’s just another indication of how slipshod this entire league “investigation” of the Patriots’ cheating has been.
It’s NFL “combine” time so ESPN covers the Father of All Combine Workouts, the Eagles very own Mike “Almost” Mamula (“almost” cause Mamula was always “almost” getting to the QB.)
The piece is actually a very interesting and comprehensive look at the Mamula story. Mamula was in the vanguard – was the vanguard – of the pre-draft workout that is now de rigeur. What I had forgotten was that the Eagles actually traded up with the Buccaneers to get Mamula, picks the Bucs used to take Warren Sapp and, yikes, Derrick Brooks – defensive pro bowlers that anchored their defense for a decade and won them a super bowl.
But what stands out as the biggest irony is that Mamula’s 6 sacks/season average would have been entirely acceptable to the Philadelphia fans had he been taken in the 2nd or 3rd round where he had initially been projected before the combine. But as a top 10 pick that production was simply inadequate. So Mamula’s combine practice landed him a big rookie contract, but set expectations that he could never fulfill. Had he been taken where he was originally slated, his 3rd round contract wouldn’t have been nearly as lucrative but he would have been embraced as a solid starter and likely gotten a decent 2nd contract/extension.
Mamula grabbed for the instant big bucks, but at the expense of a longer career and his reputation as a football player. What it did for the Eagles and Ray Rhodes’ career is already well-documented.
Ok, the online senate directory identifies Lieberman as an independent. So officially he’s not a Democrat and not a superdelegate by virtue of his senate seat. But is he a Dem superdelegate due to his vice presidential candidacy in 2000? These are the things I sometimes wonder about.
Oh my gosh, I can’t believe I didn’t realize this before, but there is one Democratic superdelegate that endorsed a Republican. That traitorous wretch of course is the sanctimonious Joe Lieberman.
Wait, did Lieberman come back into the Dem fold (if in name only) or is he still considered an Independent? He’s not really going to try to attend the Democratic convention later this year is he? Shouldn’t he attend the RNC bash since his candidate is the Republican nominee?
Hank Steinbrenner has the gumption to point fingers at the NFL in the ongoing steroids scandal. “"Everybody that knows sports knows football is tailor-made for performance-enhancing drugs. I don't know how they managed to skate by. It irritates me. Don't tell me it's not more prevalent. The number in football is at least twice as many. Look at the speed and size of those players," says a sire of the Big Stein.
It’s amazing to me too. Though the NFL has had some sort of steroids testing program in place since the 1990s, the fact that the average size of a NFL lineman has managed to balloon from 270 lbs. to the 330 lbs. behemoths over the past twenty years is, incredibly, viewed as no big deal (pun intended). One suspects that the football league is rampant with HGH abuse for which there is no reliable test and an unwillingness on the part of the league or players’ union to utilize it even if there was. Indeed, if professional baseball players were so easily able to score HGH, certainly football players had similar access to the performance enhancing drug.
Alge Crumpler, Michael Bennett are already available but other interesting players that could soon could be free agents are Antwaan Randle-El, Warrick Dunn, Kris Jenkins, and Michael Turner.
· Lito Sheppard is seeking a trade. Or isn’t. But does appear to want to renegotiate his contract. A looming holdout? I would say likely if the Eagles were to actually land Assante Samuel.
· The Eagles are pursuing Cardinals WR Larry Fitzgerald…hard. I have a hard time believing that Fitzgerald’s base salary balloons to $14 million as reported by G. Cobb.
· Eli Manning is the favorite to appear on the cover of Madden ’09. Let’s hope this rumor is true and the jinx continues.
More on the logistics of the Villanova basketball team.
Now I know where a portion of my tuition went, and why it always went up.
The hoopsters are staying at classy high end joints like the JW Marriott ($250/night) and enjoying a day and a half of meals (late night snack, breakfast, lunch, and pre-game food) for what could have been a 7 hour up and back- and that includes the actual game time.
So I'm walking through the JW Marriott in downtown Washington, DC Sunday night when I notice their schedule of the day's events includes a "late night snack" from 10-11pm for the Villanova Men's Basketball team.
On Monday night, the team was to play the arch-rival Georgetown Hoyas (and wound up losing on a terrible ticky tack foul 70 feet from the basket with, literally, 0.1 seconds to play. That foul might cost the school an NCAA berth. Oddly, it was the second time this season 'Nova was called for a game-losing foul with under 0.2 seconds to go in the game.
Anyway, what I found so interesting about this sign was the fact that although Villanova and Georgetown are only about 2 1/2 hours away by car, the team came into town a day early and missed a day of classes.
I find this really interesting. Clearly it is a sign of the big-time status of college basketball that major Division I teams can stay overnight at 3 star DC hotels for what is in reality - or should be - a day trip.
I'm not suggesting that Villanova not come down early for the game. But if they left St. David's at eleven, they would arrive in DC by 2pm, 2:30 at the absolute latest. This would still give them 4 - 4 1/2 hours before the game to stretch out, have a shoot around a day, nap and eat. And let's not forget, they're college kids: 18-21. Surely they can bounce back after a two and half hour road trip. This is worse than sitting around a downtown DC hotel all day?
Arlen Specter’s sit down with NFL Commish Roger Goodell continues to break new ground in the mushrooming Spygate scandal. A pity the sports pages of the major city dailies (including those with NFL teams) couldn’t have similarly roused themselves to look more thoroughly into Spygate months ago. If they had, they would have found out what Specter has this week by merely asking. To wit:
· The NFL investigation found wrongdoing by Belichick as far back as 2002.
· The league is now talking with former New England players (when will they find the time to query Tom Brady?) How about touching base with Drew Bledsoe?
· And the league, rather than interviewing potential key witness and former Patriot videographer Matt Walsh, is investigating him instead. How’s that for intimidation of a witness?
· Goodell presumes that Belichick has been illegally taping teams as far back as his days leading the Browns.
· The Steelers don’t blame any taping for their choking dog 24-17 loss to the visiting underdog Patriots in the 2002 AFC championship.
Specter has done a great service to sports fans for getting Goodell to be more forthright and honest about his cover-up (the obfuscation, tape destruction, and Inspector Closeau-like “investigation”) of the Patriots’ illegal activities.
So the big winners in the Roger Clemens hearing hast to be Barry Bonds and the NFL, right? The Rocket has now eclipsed BB as the most vilified Hall of Fame baseball player in America.
And while that bizarre hearing was being conducted on the House side, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell was meeting with Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter to discuss Spygate. The Clemens drama stole so much media attention that the Washington Post buried on page 2 of the sports page the stunning news out of the Goodell-Specter meeting that the Bill Belichick have been illegally taping opponents defensive signals since he became head coach in 2000!!
The shocking development is a sharp rebuke to those cynical media types who groused that Specter shouldn’t be injecting himself into this scandal. As it turns out, Specter has broken more news and uncovered more information about Spygate in his one hour and 40 minute meeting with Goodell than most news outlets have since the story broke 6 months ago.
Post media critic Howard Kurtz on my theory that Hillary Clinton could benefit from losing her front runner status over the next several weeks.
San Jose, Nashville and Ottawa keep track of this franchise stat but not the Flyers?!
The most off the wall “rumor” I’ve recently seen on the Internet is the “talk” of the Eagles trading Reggie Brown and a draft pick to the Lions for Roy Williams. Clearly, this rumor started in some Eagles’ fan’s dream. Why the Lions would make such a deal is beyond me.
From, of all places, a Chicago Bears fan site:
“Teams can officially designate Franchise and Transition Players between Feb 7, 2006 and Feb 21.
February 28 is the deadline for clubs to submit qualifying offers to their RFAs whose contracts have expired and to whom they desire to retain a Right of First Refusal/Draft Compensation.
Free Agency officially begins on February 29. For RFAs, the period officially ends on April 18. The deadline for old clubs to exercise the Right of First Refusal to RFAs is April 25. For UFAs (including Franchise players and Transition players), who have been given a tender offer from their prior team, the period officially ends on July 22 or the first day of training camp -- whichever is later.”
Ok, several friends made the analogy of Rep. Dan Burton's bulldog defense of Roger Clemens at today's steroids hearing with the disgraced and blackmailed Nevada senator in Godfather II. Those references were in several emails among friends about the hearing. But what was extra weird when i heard the VERY SAME ANALOGY on, of all places, the Don & Mike Show during my drive home.
Is it because Peter King is such a company hack or is he just indicative of the state of NFL reporting that he entirely dismisses Spygate and the importance of Matt Walsh, the Pat’s former videographer.
Writes King, “I think I don't have a lot of expectations that the continued fascination with Spygate will bear much fruit this offseason. I hear one news-media outlet spent two weeks, off and on, talking with former Patriots video employee Matt Walsh recently and came away convinced that Walsh did not have the goods on the Patriots -- or if he did, he was holding out for something (money? legal indemnification?) and left the impression he knew something but not quite the mother lode the Arlen Specters of the world wish he did.”
Note the pejorative use of “fascination,” the slap at the “Arlen Specters of the world” (i.e., those concerned with fair play) and the diminishment of Walsh’s knowledge and motivations. Hell yes Walsh should be concerned about his legal bills if he breaks his non-disclosure agreement with the Pats. King gets paid for writing stories. Walsh shouldn’t be compensated for providing the substance?
Peter, Peter – this is a big story. The premier team in the nation’s premier league accused of cheating in the country’s foremost sports contest (taping the Rams pre-Super Bowl walkthrough). And a possible league cover-up at the Commissioner’s level.
The big question is why you are trying to tamp the story out and not covering it more closely.
Can we get a ruling on what exactly yesterday's DC, MD, VA primary was? The Chesapeake Primary or the Potomac Primary?
Obama continued his "domination of Hillary," which was actually a sentence appearing in a recent WaPo lede. I'm looking forward to the future stories about how "Obama has taken Hillary from behind. or "laid her out and had his way with her." Maybe some MSM reporter can refer to Obama as a "young buck."
In any case, the press still can bring themselves to directly address the striking race gap that continues to give Obama his margins of victory. The narrative now is that he is widening his lead in most demographic groups - especially among white voters.
However, a look at the numbers reveals a different story. The MD and VA results reveal a gender gap among white women, who went for Clinton 54-45 in Virginia and 56-38 in Maryland. In Maryland white men were evenly split though in Virginia white men were for Obama 56-42. Thus the notion of "more whites" trending toward Obama is based nearly exclusively on white men. More generally, the conventional wisdom of men and women turning to Obama is practically all the result of Obama's staggering differential among blacks - who supported him with 89% of the vote in Virginia and 84% in Maryland. And because, obviously, those numbers include black men and women, which are then sliced the other way for generic men and women totals, it means that Obama's coalition is still predicated almost exclusively of african-american voters. The question is whether these voters that make up a significant portion of Democratic voters (and a flat out majority in states like South Carolina) will be enough of a critical mass to replicate Obama's support in a general election where this demographic subgroup will less of a percentage among the electorate as a whole.
The usually pedantic WaPo editorialist Ruth Marcus answers all my questions from yesterday about the superdelegates.
The key point: "In short, the Democratic Party has come up with a characteristically muddled method of choosing presidential nominees, with rules that are simultaneously overly and inadequately democratic."
Now it's up to her congressional beat colleagues to survey the Hill superdelegates and see if they will be choosing the nominee their state or congressional delegation voted for, or if they are going to make their selection as party poo-bahs independent from what their constituents wanted.
Player personnel is like...."a round of golf." ?? So says Ravens head and former Eagles coach John Harbaugh.
Somewhat surprising move by the Eagles in franchising TE LJ Smith. Most had presumed him gone after being unable to reach a contract extension and an injury plagued season that also saw some encouraging play by rookie heir apparent Brent Celek.
Still, for $4.5 million why wouldn't the Eagles tag Smith? Who knew under $5 mil was the going rate for a top TE salary?
He should be fully healed by minicamp, he knows the offense and is an above average receiver. Now if he can only hold onto the ball better after he catches it. As my friend Scott observed this past year, Smith's absence in the lineup had some dramatic effects on the efficiency of the offense. He's Shockey-esque without the histrionics and causes defensive matchup problems. Cover him with an LB? He's faster than that. Cover him with a safety? That leaves some open space in the secondary. Like him or not (and many Eagles' fans don't), the truth is that Smith is more valuable to the offense - especially the Eagles offense - than many realize.
The other encouraging sign is that keeping Smith suggests that the Eagles aren't in a rebuilding mindset for 2008 (i.e., no McNabb trade) but will make a push for the brass ring this upcoming fall. Retaining Smith on a one-year deal preserves one of the Eagles most potent offensive weapons, is a short-term commitment to winning right now, and allows Celek to more fully develop.
2009? We'll have to see.
A couple of thoughts on the just concluded primaries in DC, Virginia, and Maryland.
* Interestingly, my family got a lot of robo calls this week from the various candidates (because of their different political affiliations I heard about them all). What was most interesting is that all the candidates at some point made a call using a recorded message of themselves....except for Barack Obama. Obama's calls were made by local supporters such as his wife (7:30 pm tonight) and the sheriff of Montgomery County. All the others - McCain, Clinton, Huckabee - made the personal appeal call, but not the Senator from Illinois. Why that is my professional politico friends can explain. Does Obama want to be seen as remaining above the fray? Does he not want to associate himself with the most basic of political campaigning - asking for someone's vote? Does he want to keep his rhetorical gifts exclusive to his superb speech making? Other?
* Will someone please do an expose on the Democratic superdelegates? (that means you PK). I can vaguely call the creation of the superdelegates as a counterweight to opening up the primaries to proportional voting. but when exactly was that? And the fact that while superdelegates make up "only one-fifth" of all delegates obscures the more salient fact that superdelegates are 40% of the necessary 2,000 delegates needed for a candidate to secure the nomination. So while Dems can feel good about their proportional representation primary (as opposed to the winner take all general electoral college rules), the party leaders clearly have their thumb on the scale of the nomination process...a fact that will hopefully get more play in the coming weeks. and aside from being a governor or member of Congress, how does one become a "superdelegate?"
* PA Governor Ed Rendell is getting skewered today for speaking the truth about Obama's prospects in the Keystone State. On a riff akin to the myriad articles referencing the "Bradley Effect," Easy Ed had the audacity to explain the reality in PA thusly, ""You've got conservative whites here, and I think there are some whites who are probably not ready to vote for an African-American candidate."
Carville can call the middle of the state "Alabama." MSNBC can suggest Chelsea Clinton is a prostitute (woe to the reporter who would make the "racist" mistake of using the word "pimp" within three paragraphs of the name "Obama." Misogyny is apparently the last remaining acceptable prejudice in American journalism). Any number of commentators can (and have) explained the rationale of the Bradley Effect but if a successful pol like EZ Ed lays it out in such stark terms they (or their state) is branded as racist.
* Speaking of misogyny. I had some fascinating discussions with people about the two Democratic candidates. The Hillary hatred is especially astounding. "She's cold, she's manipulative, she's phony," etc. these right wingers (and some left leaners say.) But it is truly bizarre when these same people lambaste her for remaining married to her husband while "he was getting blow jobs in the Oval Office by 18 year-olds." Under this line of thinking, she's not the victim but the witting perp because she didn't leave him because of her ultimate presidential ambitions. Family values be damned! (and you thought Dems had wacky conspiracy theories).
* You heard it here first. The primary schedule is to Clinton's benefit over the next three weeks. She's not expected to win anything till the OH, PA, TX primaries and Obama is clearly the front runner now. In theory, he'll undergo a more careful media examination. Those stories won't have a significant effect on the Buckeye-Nittany Lion primary results but her wins there will then fuel another round of a Hillary rebound and Obama swoon under the national media glare. Onward to Denver!
Of course, if this were a usual year the media would carefully scrutinize the new front runner. But this isn't a normal year so don't expect Obama to get the typical vetting because of white guilt in the press and a reluctance to do a hard hitting piece that gets them branded as bigots.
Talk about How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying! Skins offensive coordinator Jim Zorn never got to craft a Skins game plan and Danny Snyder has promoted him to head coach.
The whole thing stinks of desperation. I think it's apparent that the Skins were really focused on Giants d-coordinator Steve Spagnuola even before the Super Bowl win. His D's performance in the big game only whetted Danny' s appetite (wetted Danny's crotch?) even more.
As an Eagles fan I was hoping for the Jim Johnson protege to be hired. A combo move that would have at once thrown the Giants defense into turmoil - which had taken all year to master his schemes and probably meant a shift in philosophy thanks to a new d-coach coming in fresh -- and installing in Washington an untested head coach (though an astute defensive coach). In other words, Gregg Williams only if Spagnuola had a mediocre head coaching record.
But that plan went up in smoke when Spags...can we call him Spags since I'm not sure what and how many vowels his last name ends with spurned the Skins. Even the Plan B wasn't too bad. Jim Fassel always played the Eagles tough and took a team to the super bowl.
But Jim Zorn? Danny must have been really wowed by his talk of converting the Skins hard running/vertical passing game into a west coast offense.
Strange, strange, strange.
And then there's the fact that Jim Zorn was my brother's favorite NFL player for a year or two when we were growing up. Jeff even had a poster of Zorn with the Seahawks in his room. Aside from his name starting with a Z and being the first QB in Seattle franchise history, i think his big claim to fame was that he is a lefty. So I'll think of that everytime i hear his name for the next three years.
Somewhere Jack Patera is smiling.
So this year's arbitration hearing with Ryan Howard won't go as smoothly as the past ones. And why should it from Howard's perspective. The Phillies are offering the NL Rookie of the Year and League MVP $7 million for the 2008 season. Which is HALF of Pat Burrell's salary...(for twice the hitter.) Indeed, Howard is the slugger the Phillies thought/hoped Burrell would become. And then there's Chase Utley's 7 year/$85 miillion deal. But here's the key part of that compensation. It's guaranteed.
Is it any wonder Howard is not happy with the Phils' one year low ball offer?
Pay Howard the $10 million he's asking for and build goodwill for the long term contract he's destined to sign.
Ramirez and Ortiz already have two rings. Utley and Howard should be able to match that. And so should the Phillies payroll wise.
