Wednesday, October 6, 2010

In a fantasy league, this deal would get vetoed

There's no way New England trading Randy Moss right now makes any sense at all. Multiple reports insist they're talking about it, and there are rumors he may have gotten into a dispute with Bill Belichick. I don't care if that's true or not, there's no way it's a good idea to trade one of the most dangerous weapons in the league a few weeks into the season. Add in that the supposed price Minnesota would pay is likely a third round pick and it's even stranger. New England already has the first round pick from a bad Oakland team and the second rounder from winless Carolina, plus their own picks. What good's an extra third rounder going to do for them in comparison to what Moss could this year? Brett Favre will be ecstatic if the Vikings can get him a target with Sidney Rice out for weeks still, but I'm not sure Moss gets the offense back to the level they were last season until Rice returns.

If the Moss talk makes no sense, Miami firing its special teams coach after Monday night's debacle did. It's hard to understand how someone capable of rising to the level of an NFL assistant could have so many problems coaching the position he's been assigned, but John Bonamego's unit was an absolute disaster. Apparently any kind of stunting rush by an opposing team was enough to completely stump his protection unit on what to do next. Some in south Florida are using roster turnover as an explanation for what's gone wrong, and that may have hurt. It still can't explain a total breakdown in every phase of special teams.

Mack Brown wouldn't be on my list of the top five head coaches in college football because he's not much of a game manager or strategist. He's a terrific recruiter and face of a program though, and he was the perfect choice for Texas. That's an incredible job, yet for two decades people like Fred Akers, David McWilliams and John Mackovic proved it was possible to fail to win there. So why would anyone in Austin float the idea of shoving Brown out the door after this year to keep Will Muschamp in case Georgia comes after him? I know Muschamp worked under Saban and is a young emotional guy, but sometimes talented assistants still fail to be good head coaches. Texas is one of the few jobs that has the combination of financial resources and incredible instate talent to hire almost anyone they want. I was amazed they made the coach in waiting deal with Muschamp in the first place. Let him take a gig somewhere else like Gene Chizik did before him, and if he turns out to actually be a quality head coach you can always offer him more money than anyone else later. If they lean on brown to leave, Texas will wind up wishing they hadn't.

A guilty plea from a guy you've likely never heard of could turn out to be a major problem for a lot of people in the National Football League. If the name Mike Ornstein means anything to you, it's from being associated with Reggie Bush as his marketing agent. Now Ornstein's pleading guilty to charges including mail fraud as well as conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud. He was involved in selling Super Bowl tickets obtained for face value as well as fraudulent certificates of authenticity for "game used" jerseys that weren't. What no one knows is what happens next, because the people Ornstein was getting his tickets from are NFL personnel and/or players. He's known to be particularly close with the Saints, but if prosecutors are being aggressive this could impact a lot of people. Meanwhile, why was a guy who already had a previous federal conviction for mail fraud involving NFL Properties being allowed to be involved with anything the league did? This will be an interesting story to follow.

Ordinarily if I heard an "illiterate clown" had been elected to office, I'd assume I'd made the mistake of tuning in to one of the cable news shows that rant about politics all the time. In this case however, that's not a statement of opinion but rather of fact. Meet Tiririca, Brazil's newest elected member of congress. Here in the US we've got someone whose primary business is pro wrestling running for the Senate from Connecticut, but at least it's not Doink the Clown.

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