By Bill Barnwell at
Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post/Getty Images
There's one enormous misconception that keeps cropping up this NFL offseason in the reaction to surprising personnel decisions. In terms of evaluating how much a particular player is worth (to his team or another), one little tidbit matters more than anything else: Past performance, future performance, personality, and name value all fall by the wayside to this most essential bargaining chip. It explains both the Tony Romo deal from this past weekend and Carson Palmer's desperate attempt to flee the East Bay. In the NFL, leverage is everything.
Consider Dallas's predicament with regard to its occasionally brilliant, frequently embattled quarterback this offseason. With a team of expensive veterans surrounded by a relative paucity of players on cheap, team-friendly rookie contracts, the Cowboys normally would be up against the salary cap. It didn't help when the Cowboys failed to come to terms with Anthony Spencer on a long-term deal and were forced to franchise him for the second consecutive year. Throw in the cap penalty they're eating after the NFL took away $10 million over two years for their handiwork during the uncapped year, and the Cowboys were really struggling to create space under the cap. Cap figures aren't released publicly, but by some accounts, the Cowboys couldn't have fit a Crown Victoria into their cap space this offseason, let alone Victor Butler.
In case you were busy crashing Lark Voorhies's birthday party (and if so, kudos to you), here's what you missed in sports on Monday.
Tiger Woods had a vintage weekend as he both reclaimed the no. 1 world ranking in golf and won his record eighth Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill. When asked if things could be any better than they are right now, Woods responded, "Um, yes. Yes, they could. You have no idea." When asked to elaborate, Woods responded, "No, I better not. I … I better not."
The Miami Heat ran their win streak to 27 games after a 108-94 win over the Orlando Magic. Miami forward Chris Bosh was jubilant after the performance, saying, "Big things are happening in Miami. I'm hoping this will finally get the media to pay attention to us down here. These 27 straight wins should definitely get us the attention we deserve."
When the rumor was circulating on Friday morning that the Packers were going to release Charles Woodson, I got more than one text message with the same question: “HOFer?” What makes Woodson’s time in Green Bay so notable isn’t my answer to that question — it’s how emphatically I gave it. I have no doubt that Woodson will give a speech in Canton one day, but the certainty in that assessment tends to make me forget about the uncertainty that came with Woodson signing in Green Bay.
In case you were out living a life of leisure, here's what you missed in sports over the weekend.
The Detroit Tigers took a 2-0 lead on the Yankees in the ALCS with a 3-0 win on Sunday after Derek Jeter suffered a season-ending ankle fracture during Saturday's loss. "As horrible as the pain was, I noticed it made Nick Swisher stop grinning for a second," said Jeter. "So, you know, it's a wash. The whole thing is a wash, because as much as I hate — as we all hate — Nick Swisher, he's so much more despicable when he grins like a buffoon, which is always. Seriously, I'll pay anyone $500 if they can find a photo of him where he's not smiling in a way that makes you want to slap him. So for, like, three seconds after I went down, he was just this annoying idiot with stupid sideburns who can't hit or field but who, for once in his obnoxious life, wasn't grinning. If I had to fracture my ankle to make that possible, then I guess I'm some kind of martyr. I'm Saint Derek, and all my apostles are guys who can't hit a curve."
On paper, if you let your eyes blur just a little, Lane Kiffin is a genius and a boy wonder. He became the youngest head coach in NFL history with the Raiders, moved on to a plum job at Tennessee, and now heads up one of college football's most historic programs, USC, as the youngest coach of a BCS conference team. He's only 37, but his résumé to date implies someone with a virtuosic football brain, a maturity belying his years, and a precocious instinct for people and systems.
But in fact, the reality doesn't match the perception. Lane Kiffin has made a fool of himself at every career stop, shown a penchant for lying and selfishness, and rarely produced on-the-field results that would seem to justify his meteoric rise. The latest example was Saturday's 21-14 loss at Stanford, which ended USC's national title hopes and sent them plummeting from no. 2 to no. 13 in the AP poll. Before I get into why this might be happening, let's take a quick tour through Kiffin's career highlights.
In case you were out living a life of leisure, here's what you missed in sports on Monday.
Andy Murray won his first career Grand Slam, outlasting Novak Djokovic in a five-set marathon to take the U.S. Open title. The Scottish Murray credited his win to watching the inspirational parts from Braveheart before the match, while Djokovic blamed his loss on watching scenes from the depressing Serbian silent art house film A Lifetime of Sidewalks.
Yesterday, we stopped lamenting the end of the NFL's acquisition season by detailing how 10 teams had sufficiently upgraded their weakest spots in the lineup. Plaudits were handed out, compliments were given, and we even found a nice thing to say about the Browns taking a running back third overall. All in all, it was a day of high praise.
Today, though, brings the natural counter to that piece: the 10 teams who failed to address their biggest holes this offseason. Some of these organizations tried to do so and failed. Others were limited by the salary cap. A couple of them even created those holes early on in the offseason and never seemed to get around to patching them up. We're not concerned with the excuses here, though; we just see the smoldering wreckage at certain positions for each of these teams and wonder whether that problem will come back to haunt them in 2012.
With just four business days left before the start of the NFL free agency period, it's high time for us to start the final portion of our sprawling, seemingly endless free agent preview. After standing in for agents, scoffing at the largesse of owners, and identifying comparables for the pool's key players, it's finally time to approach free agency from the perspective of the league's general managers and player personnel departments.
In case you were out living a life of leisure, here's what you missed in sports on Monday.
The Giants arrived in Indianapolis for this weekend's Super Bowl, and safety Antrel Rolle said the team is "expecting to win on Sunday." At that exact moment, Tom Brady walked by and whispered, "Game's on Saturday, Einstein." Rolle smiled tightly and told reporters he knew Brady was just messing with him. But when he thought everyone was looking away, he took out his phone and glanced at the calendar. "Yup, just messing with me," he said to himself. "Knew it."
Bill Belichick told reporters that injured tight end Rob Gronkowski didn't practice on Monday. But that doesn't mean Belichick didn't put him to work — he needed all the cameramen he could get for the Giants' practice that afternoon.
In case you were out living a life of leisure, here's what you missed in sports on Tuesday.
A source reported that the Detroit Tigers have agreed to a nine-year, $214 million deal with former Brewers slugger Prince Fielder. The hefty contract was a bitter pill to swallow for Tigers third baseman Brandon Inge, who is currently being paid in worthless foreclosed Detroit homes.
By Shane Ryan at
Noah Graham/Getty Images AP Photo/Jae C. Hong
In case you were out living a life of leisure, here's what you missed in sports on Tuesday.
Kobe Bryant scored 48 points on 31 shots as the Lakers beat the Suns 99-83. "If I play bad or have one bad game like I did in Denver, everybody cries for a change or cries for the fact that I'm too old," Bryant said after the game. Reporters gently pointed out that the "bad game" against Denver had come in 1999, at which point Bryant looked frightened and repeatedly asked for Shaq.
As always, we detail the sordid and the successful every Tuesday in our weekly look back at the previous weekend's games; this is "The Fabulous and the Flops" for Week 15.
This week, we'll identify the player who might qualify as the worst backup quarterback … ever. We'll point out which quarterback looks like a different man during the second half, try to compare a player to a couch, and note which head coach was brave enough to own up to his mistakes on Sunday. We'll start, though, with the blowout from last Thursday night.
In this week's "The Fabulous & the Flops," we mine the annals of futility to find comparable games for some of the week's worst performances. Which quarterback nearly beat out Blaine Gabbert for the least accurate game of the season? Which pair of elite wide receivers couldn't buy a catch on Sunday? Which team should probably stop calling running plays altogether? And what did Devin Aromashodu unexpectedly do? All that and more, but first, is Beast Mode becoming a dominant running back?
In this week's edition of "The Fabulous and the Flops," we identify the player who needs to accompany Ndamukong Suh to image-revamping school, show some love to the young talent who is making the absence of a major star seem like nothing, and basically make fun of the sloppiest game of the season for a while. Plus: Our coverage of Chris Johnson as either the best or worst player on the field continues!
In this look back at Week 11's action, we identify the fabulous linebacker who seems to be making everyone else on his team superstars, the pair of rookies who made our Friday column look wise, and the head coach who deserves credit for trying to pull out an unorthodox win.
