Hey guys, I don't usually make fanposts or anything but today I am particularly bored and figured I'd give it a go.

Obviously the Browns have a litany of needs that need to be addressed that, in my opinion go something like this: 1) WR 2) QB 3) OL 4)LB 5)DB 6)DE. Obviously theres some room for debate as far as what should be a priority, but I think this is a fair jumping-off point for discussion.

The problem is that with so many holes, its clearly not possible to fill them all this off season. I think we ought to focus on three or four positions and dedicate ourselves to solving them primarily through the draft and then seeing where we're at after next season.

With that in mind, there are a couple things I wanted to talk about. I think this draft is much deeper at WR than it is at QB and we're much more likely to get a solid WR who can provide a long term answer for us with our second first round pick than we are at QB. Therefore I think its plain to see that we ought to be prioritizing grabbing a QB with our first pick in the first round.

Robert Griffin III was a guy whos name was being bandied about a lot around here as a potential answer to the QB question that has been hanging over the Browns since our return. Colt isn't going to get it done here, and I think thats becoming increasingly obvious. I think he could be a starter one day, but not in Cleveland. However, Griffin's draft stock has been going through the roof and in most mock drafts I've seen, we're drafting somewhere at the bottom of the top ten and he's going much earlier than that to Washington or even Jacksonville. Berkley is also slotted to go ahead of us, and obviously Luck is supposed to be the first overall pick to Indianapolis.

Another option that I think isn't talked about enough is hitting free agency and grabbing a guy like Matt Flynn who has shown a lot of promise in his limited opportunities and could probably be had for a reasonable price. You have to remember, youre not just paying for a QB but youre also paying for an opportunity to use your draft picks to address other needs. If we could grab a WR with our first overall pick, that would put us in the running for a guy like Mark Barron out of Alabama or maybe if we're lucky, even a guy like Luke Kuechly out of BC.

Say that can't be done though. Would trading up be a possibility? Would Jax, Washington, Indy or any other team ahead of us be interested in allowing us to trade up to their position? In 2010 Josh McDaniels moved from the 43rd selection to the 25th to grab Tebow for just third and fourth round picks. Considering we've got an additional first round pick in our pocket, I'd be willing to part with that much as well as so much as a 3rd or 4th or two next year in order to be in a position to take RGIII considering I dont think there's a lot of talent warranting first round picks outside of Luck, Berkley and Griffin - I think Jones is a bust in the making, Gabbert without the looks.

That would leave us in a position to take a guy like Michael Floyd or Alshon Jeffrey with our second first round pick as many drafts have both of them sliding to our spot. We might even consider trading down a spot or two and banking on landing a guy like Kendall Wright out of Baylor and then using a 3rd or whatever we acquire to reach for a guy like Broyles out of OU who showed a lot of potential before his injury.Think about this as well - if we traded down just a few spots from our second first round pick for a 3rd, which I think is a reasonable going rate, we'd have two picks a round for three of the first four rounds thanks to acquiring an additional fourth round pick from our trade with Atlanta last year.

That all would leave our 2nd round pick available to pick up a suitable right tackle. We don't need a world beater, especially considering whoever we have at QB won't be asked to do a ton of huge drops back, more 3 step drops and get the ball out. We need a guy who can simply hold it down. In other words, we don't need another Joe Thomas or another Alex Mack, we need another Eric Steinbach. Someone like Andrew Datko may be available early in the second round as his stocked has slipped following an injury. Indeed, the way things are shaping up now, some of the best tackles in the draft will still likely be hanging around in the second round.

idk. thoughts?

I'm definitely not the most knowledgable guy on the Brownies from over at Dawgs By Nature, but I know a little bit and my activation period has expired, so I figured I'd get the ball rolling and start one of these threads as a return favor from the one one of your guys got going at our homebase. Im sure as the activation periods wind down guys from over there who know more than I do will contribute as well.

As an Orlando native, I grew up around people mainly cheering for the Bucs and Phins, so I'm always a little extra excited the week Cleveland takes on the Dolphins. Not to mention as a FSU alum, I've got a natural rivalrous disposition towards Miami.

Anyways I think this a game of two pretty evenly matched teams with strengths and weaknesses that may make for a pretty exciting (or grueling) game to watch. Any questions about the Browns for those who know them best?

Whats that baseball betting game where, you put all the position numbers in a hat, and people randomly pull 1 or 2 out or however many you have to so where everyone has an equal number of positions. So if I pull a 2, than any time either catcher from either team gets a single, everyone gives me a dollar. A double, I get 2 dollars, a triple 3, a homer 4. But if the catcher grounds out, I owe everyone a dollar, strikes out swinging 2, strikes out looking 3. Or something like that.

Anyways if anyones familiar with this and knows the rules better than I do I'd definitely appreciate it.

I know its a bit off topic but I think one of the cool things about RBR is the community aspect, and so I got to wondering if any of you gents every played organized football and if so, at what position and at what level? I think it'll be interesting to get a little bit of an athletic background and I'm one of the few who likes to hear stories of a person's athletic glory days.

I personally never played organized football outside of a Pop Warner growing up and intramural flag football in college, as I was a through and through wrestler and probably too undersized and slow to make much of a difference on a 6A Florida squad.

If the mods feel it necessary to deck this somewhere else or wipe it out than thats cool but I think its a neat idea for a thread, so nanny nanny boo boo.

What if the top half of the ACC folds into the SEC, and the bottom half of the remaining ACC replenishes the conference's ranks with up and coming mid majors like Troy?

So for instance, say Florida State, Miami, Georgia Tech/Clemson and Va Tech get bumped to the SEC and make them a 16 team conference. Additionally, say Boston College pulled a shocker and got elected to the Big 10.

That'd leave Wake Forest, Virginia, North Carolina, North Carolina State, Maryland, Duke, and GT/Clemson. So thats 7 teams, and if the ACC wanted to keep pace with the 16 team big boys, they'd have to raid the cupboards of other conferences. I can see them abandoning the coastal footprint and snatching up West Virginia, but they'd still need 7 more. USF has proven they can run with the big boys (beat FSU), East Carolina would be appealing, Middle Tennessee topped Maryland, Louisville would be appealing, Memphis would be a draw if for basketball alone, and then it gets tricky for another team in that southeastern footprint... maybe stretch west for a USM or Tulane, or approach a team like Navy who is at home in that area in Annapolis. Troy and UCF could top off the deal so your conference would look like this:

North:
Wake Forest
Virginia
Navy (for sake of conversation)
North Carolina
West Virginia
Maryland
East Carolina
Louisville

South:
North Carolina State
Duke
GT/Clemson
USF
MTSU
Memphis
Troy
UCF

I bet that that scenario is highly implausible but it'd be frikkin sweet, plus that footprint isn't too much larger than the Sun Belts now and is smaller than the ACC's currently is. We'd get to maintain our rivalry with Middle Tennessee, enjoy games against larger named programs like NC State and WVa, and still remain completely competitive against even the top of the program. Not to mention a conference like that would deserve every bit as much of a seat at the table of AQ megaconference should there not be a playoff in place by that time. Furthermore, each of these teams could also remain competitive in other sports. Some of the ACC team transfers might moan about playing "lesser competition" but they'd only do that until the new-to-ACC teams beat them a few times (shouldn't take long) and found out how marketable the transfer programs are. Besides, what else are they gonna do?

Say the SEC only seeks to expand to fourteen, they can take GT/Clemson and NC State or something and leave the new ACC I've proposed as a 14 team conference

Hey fellas, I'm new around here and a lifelong Cleveland Browns fan but I thought I'd stop by and give you guys some of my thoughts on one of your new QBs, Levi Brown out of Troy. I went to Troy while Brown was still there and followed him pretty much his entire career as I'm a pretty die-hard Trojans fan. That being said, I'll try and stay away from any homerism. A lot of folks seem to be dismissing Brown as a viable QB option, but I implore you to at least reconsider. I liked him enough as a QB that I was hoping he'd fall to the Browns, and as much as I like Troy and their players, I like my Browns even more, so let that say something to you.

To start, I hear a lot of people talking about the offense that Levi came out of. I get the impression that most of the exposure that folks have gotten to Levi as far as film goes is the video posted earlier from an opening drive in Baton Rouge, 2008. To that point, there are two things to keep in mind:

1) Levi Brown played under center in a more pro-style offense for two years at the University of Richmond before transferring to Troy. Here is what his profile at the Troy athletic site says to that end:

Played football for University of Richmond through 2005 -2006 under Coach Dave Clawson ... In 2006, saw action in six games, one as a starter ... Against Villanova, he completed 24-of-36 passes for 332 yards and two touchdowns ... For the season, he completed 54-of-90 pass attempts for 618 yards and five touchdowns ... He was intercepted four times ... Helped lead team to 2005 Atlantic 10 championship, playing in five games, two as the starter ... Completed 12-of-42 passes for the season for 66 yards ... Was intercepted three times.

So as we can see, Levi has some experience in a more traditional offense against a quality level of competition, considering the fact that he was in only his first few years of college experience. Like I said in another thread, Richmond isn't exactly going up against SEC defenses, but as far as D1-AA goes, the Spiders are near the top of the heap. I do believe that there IS something to take from this.

2) The Troy offense was somewhat gimmicky his junior season, still utilizing the no huddle offense that was put to great use in the Tony Franklin era of Troy football where the players would rush to the line, then look back to the sideline where a series of colors and numbers would indicate the play after the defense had set up. However, in his senior season, the team got away from this. Two things happened that are of note: 1) While Troy didn't go on to use it very often if ever in the regular season, Neil Brown did develop short yardage packages with Levi under center. 2) The team started to transition to less and less of the tricksy no-huddle and more towards traditional play calling. 

So we've established some HOPE (and make no mistake, hope is all I'm looking to give you, I dont claim Levi to be a messiah), that Levi will be able to slide successfully into a professional offense considering the wide open spread system he gained fame for in college at Troy. Speaking of Troy, let me give you some historical background on his career there.

Levi first sent Troy a tape when he was looking to transfer closer to his home in Mt Joliet, Tennessee. He actually wanted to stimulate interest from Middle Tennessee State, and hoped that MTSU would be motivated to snatch him up in order to prevent him from falling to the sworn Sun Belt rival Trojans. But Troy got the tape and snatch him up they did. At the time, the QB was Omar Haugabook, who is still legendary on Troy's campus (half of the students think he was drafted in the first round, in reality he plays indoor football in Louisiana). Omar was a fiery, competitive, mobile QB who was prone to INTs but kept Troy close in games against Georgia, Florida, Florida State and even led the team to a blow out of Oklahoma State in southeast Alabama in 07. Neil Brown liked the mobility aspect, and, even with Levi on the roster, N Brown decided to start former Purdue commit Jamie Hampton, who was a significantly worse passer but possessed some mobility Levi lacked. Brown was buried to the bottom of the depth chart, despite IMO having the best spring of the entire QB roster, and winning the hearts of several players.

After losing to Ohio State in a close game that was in my opinion decided by two Jamie Hampton turnovers, Troy looked to be content to simply win the Sun Belt, and in a game vs FAU in Boca, Hampton went down with a leg injury. Another QB named Tanner Jones came in for mop up duty in the Troy victory. Levi however won the starting job for the next game through the course of the week, and went on to win Sun Belt Newcomer of the Year honors in the weeks remaining. In his first game as a Trojan, Levi looked impressive, but didn't really break out until his second game vs North Texas where he complete 40 of 50 passes for 391 yards, 2 TDs, 0 INTs, 0 sacks. At that point, I was saying "I told ya so." From there, Levi continued to post great numbers, only throwing 3 INTs through the remainder of the season against 15 TDs, including a stellar game vs LSU, which I'm still to pissed to really want to talk about. It was in the bowl game against SMU when one announcer remarked that Levi was  "the most accurate passer in college football." And in that game, I'd believe it.

Heading in to the 2009 season, Brown was named to the Manning Award Watchlist and expectations were high. Troy got a lot of hype and love from the press, which may or may not have contributed to our downfall. Troy opened up with a loss to Bowling Green, a game we should have won handily, but our defense didn't show up, our run game was pathetic and Levi gave up 2 INTs. The next game wasn't any easier, taking a 4 hour trip south to Florida to take on the Gators in the rain. Memories of a heroic performance against the Gators in 07 by the Trojans were quickly erased as Levi completed just 8 of 24 passes for a laughable 66 yards with a INT thrown in to boot. It is important to note however that the INT was largely the fault of WR Josh Jarboe, the recruit from Oklahoma who transferred after a YouTube video about skeeting and AK-47s left him out of Stoop's favor in Norman. 

From there, things began to turn around. Brown had his first of 3 +400 yd games against UAB. Brown left many games early in which he was paced to break the 500 yard marker. Also interesting is that, excluding the first two games (still leaving in games vs quality teams such as Arkansas and CMU), Brown through 22 TDs to just 6 INTs.

As far as skills/talents/etc go...

Brown has great size at 6'4", 219 lbs. He's got an athletic build and great arm strength. I asked another Troy QB what he thought of Levi before he became the starter and his first response was, "He can throw the piss outta the ball." And he really can. As many of you know, he's got a great spiral, and while many have critiqued his release, I have to point out that the ball has zip and accuracy, and his deep passes turn nicely with minimal fluttering. His only problem is he sometime tends to float the ball on deep passes, but if anything he overthrows.

Another common criticism of Levi was that he was TOO careful with the ball. Levi was unafraid of getting outside the pocket and, finding no one open, throwing it out of bounds. He did this as much or more than any QB I have seen in the last year.

Brown is a solid passer in short range on the run, showing good form in squaring up his shoulders, getting power from the hips and leading his intended receiver with accuracy.

He is often cited as struggling with passes to the flats, and there is definitely some merit to that, however I believe it is overstated as the RBs at Troy during his tenure, mostly Maurice Greer (a UDFA with NE), DuJuan Harris, and Shawn Southward, lacked route running, timing and hands. This is certainly an area though in which Brown could use some work.

As far as intangibles, I certainly wouldn't worry about finding Brown doped up with a dead hooker and some apes stolen from a zoo in the Eastern bloc. Brown has a passion for Africa, and I'd be surprised if a sizable portion of his first check didn't go to Invisible Children or some similar organization. He seemed to lack a little bit of passion for football his junior year, but his zeal picked up and he turned into a confident field general in his senior campaign. The only thing that ever bothered me about Levi was his post-game comments after the UF loss, in which he seemed to not really care, as if he never expected to win. Personally, I dont care who your playing, I expect you to feel like you can beat anybody once. But that's just me.

Anyways, I'm sure theres some stuff I missed and I'm open for questions.

A while back, before the start of the 2009 college football season, I was asked to write a two part article for a now-defunct Troy blog on Wordpress about "Players We Can't Afford to Lose." I did one for the defensive side of the ball and one for the defensive side. I'd simply post the link up as a fanshot, but I  can't find it and only have a file sent to me from the owner of the blog. Not surprisingly, both of our Troy pick ups, Boris Lee and Cameron Sheffield, are mentioned. You'll also see mention of Cardinals CB Jorrck Calvin, Atlanta UDFA LB Bear Woods, and San Diego UDFA DE Brandon Lang.

Its a bit dated, but the way the AP community gobbles down any information it can get its hands on, I figured you all might find it interesting/useful.

Here it is:

About a week and a half ago, we took a look at the guys on the offensive side of the ball that as far as I’m concerned, Troy can’t afford to lose and still expect to see the end result of this season as a success. This time we’ll pull a Zacchaeus and gander on over at the defense to see what we can see.

It’s completely debatable who the anchor is for Troy on defense as we have a lot of talent between our defensive line and linebackers. For this reason I’ll just list the most significant guys out there and you can rank them as you please, if you please. Let me know what you think in the comments.

First up is the man himself, Boris Lee, a Lombardi Award watch list nominee headed into his second year and two time first team All Sun-Belt selection. Lee is an all around stud, solid against the run and consistent finishing tackles, as well as adequate in coverage with 7 INTs to his name as well as a handful of PBUs. Lee is up to a solid 230 by his own account and is quick to get to the ball with 40 speed clocked as low as 4.63. All of this is excellent on its own, but when you pair Lee with buddy and fellow senior LB Bear Woods, the duo provides leadership and identity to the defensive side of the ball. Woods is also an extremely talented back and second team All Sun-Belt performer who is only absent from this list because of the fact that Troy will simply have to get along without him for 2 games to start the season off.

Next up are senior defensive ends Brandon Lang and Cameron Sheffield, both Lombardi Award watch list candidates along with Lee who inherit a position at DE that has an outstanding pedigree at Troy with NFL superstars Osi Umenyiora and Demarcus Ware having played there in the past. These experienced linemen will be pivotal in containment and forcing the direction of the game in to Troy’s defensive strengths. The pair was able to combine for 14.5 sacks last season, and will aim to improve on that in their senior campaign. Stopping the run and containing the QB will recieve added importance against mobile quarterbacks like Tim Tebow or even Tyler Sheehan, among others.

Finally is senior DB Jorrick Calvin, a two time Sun Belt defensive player of the week and four time special team player of the week. The transfer from Decatur’s East Central Community College recorded 62 tackles, a forced fumble and 2 interceptions last year playing aside Carolina Panther Sherrod Martin. Calvin is another player who seems to have an ability to simply make things happen, with perhaps the most memorable moment being in the opening moments of the 2009 New Orleans Bowl, snatching a lateral and taking it for a TD. Also in the defensive backfield is freshman Bryan Willis, who has been very impressive in practice thus far, could prove to be an integral part of the Trojan defense lining up in the CB spot opposite Calvin.

This week, a problem that has been stewing for quite some time was brought to the surface. It wasn't the startling inefficiencies and lack of ability in our offense, it wasn't our less than stellar defense, and it wasn't how studly Dustin Colquitt and Ryan Succop are. It was the horrible hair stylings of one Brodie Croyle. His hair has been suspect in the past, but it wasn't until this weekend that the furry fashion faux pa affixed to the top of his dome became not just an eye-sore, but an embarrassment to an already reeling Kansas City Chiefs franchise.

While I understand that Brodie has a beautiful wife and is no longer looking to impress the ladies, that is no excuse to wear a mullet around on the sidelines. Besides, Brodie, you run the risk of scaring off all the deer if they mistake your rodent-esque cranium for a small animal like a badger or a wolverine. In this instance, you can take a que from another young, strapping lad on the Chiefs franchise: Matt Cassel.

via kcmonarchy.files.wordpress.com

Or perhaps just a buzz cut would do. Maybe take a cue from Don Draper and stick with a classic part. Maybe even go the way of O Brother Where art Thou and become a Dapper Dan Man. Maybe you could consider going back to what got you to the top in the first place in college:

via druidcityonline.com

Look at that classy, well groomed, young stud! As you can see, everyone wants to talk to Brodie with his nice, neat do. And I bet a pretty young lady waits just around the corner to be wooed! 

Brodie's got to remember that he isn't Ringo Starr, he isn't Keanu Reeves from "The Replacements," and he's not Echoes, Silence, Patience and Grace or Nirvana version of Dave Grohl:

via consequenceofsound.net

Please get a hair cut Brodie. Things are bad enough without you uglying up the sidelines.

I know its not really Bama related per se but it is football related and I remember seeing a thread on this earlier in the year. Anyways I know the mods will feel free to move it if its not appropriate, but I honestly couldnt think of a more knowledgable/helpful group of people to ask than the RBR community.

This season Im going yet again into my schools' intramural 7 on 7 league. Im the captain and the QB, and to be completely honest most of my teams have been like Brodie Croyle's KC Chiefs: they keep it close but rarely win. I think most of that lends itself to poor planning and strategy as we dont commit many turnovers and seem to move the ball decently but fail to finish on occasion and can rarely come up with a stop on defense.

So I was wondering what the Sports Bar's experience with it was. For defense I was looking at either a sort of cover 1 man defense with a rusher, a linebacker who can rush, spy or drop into coverage, 4 guys playing up in man coverage and a safety covering the deep zone. Of course from here you could mix up different blitzes packages to confuse the offense, try and force the QB to throw cross body, etc. But I also realize most teams run a mostly zone defense with two corners covering short zones, 2 safeties covering the deep zones, a linebacker with a similar assignment, and two rushers. The problem I have with this is it seems that the players each have to take in a lot more information and make more complicated decisions each play once the offense catches on and starts trying to fit routs between the zones or overloading the zones.

On offense I was thinking of just having a center who blocks every play, a tight end lined up directly next to him who would block mostly but could also straight run a route or break off, and either 3 or 4 WRs and a guy lined up as a HB. From there it seems to me if you could read the defense you could set up some very productive QB draw plays if the TE and the QB read the defenses and are on the same page if facing a man defense, and Im confident enough in my own passing ability to find the holes in a zone defense with only 4-5 zones against 4-6 WRs.

Anyways what do you guys think? Im hoping I can get some feedback here.

via imgs.sfgate.com

I dont think that its a ridiculous proposition to make. First we have to look at what other quarterbacks got taken that year.

There were 11 QBs taken in the 2006 draft: Vince Young to Tennessee in the first round, Matt Leinart to Arizona in the first, Jay Cutler in the first to Denver, Kellen Clemens in the second to NYJ,  Tavaris Jackson in the second to Minnesota, Charlie Whitehurst to SD in the third, Brodie Croyle to KC in the third, Ingle Martin to GB in the fifth, Omar Jacobs to Pittsburgh in the fifth, Bruce Gradkowski to TB in the sixth, and DJ Shockley in the seventh to ATL.

We can pretty much discard DJ Shockley, Ingle Martin, and Omar Jacobs as none of them are on NFL rosters any longer, and to the best of my knowledge none of them even played a snap in the NFL regular season.

Next would be Bruce Gradkowski, who started 11 games for TB his rookie season, putting up a 55% completion percentage, 1661 yds, 9 TDs and 9 INTs with a 65.9 QB rating. He then proceeded to lose the starting spot and became a journey man, getting cut from the Cleveland Browns after failing to secure a spot playing for injured Brady Quinn, Derek Anderson and Ken Dorsey. He is now in Oakland, God bless his heart.

Charlie Whitehurst has never attempted a regular season pass in the NFL, but he does have a rushing touchdown so good for him. He is now third on the depth chart for San Diego with a totally rockin hair du.

Kellen Clemens has gotten plenty of playing time since he entered the league playing for the Jets. He's played in 14 games, seeing time both a starter and behind Brett Favre, Chad Pennington and now Mark Sanchez. Over that time, he has just a 52% completion percentage and a TD/INT ratio of 5/11, which makes puppies cry. So like I said he's sitting now in NYJ.

Tavaris Jackson has actually seen a lot of playing time in Minnesota and was, as everyone knows, was involved in a QB battle with Sage Rosenfels right up until the Vikes signed Favre. Jackson has seen action in 25 games, and despite a negative ere about him, he's actually not totally sucked. Jackson has a career completion percentage of 58%, with a 20/18 TD/INT ration and a 76.4 QB rating. All that being said, I think very much of that owes itself to having the best one-two rushing punch in the NFL playing behind him with a solid o-line in front of him. Jackson's QB ratings without Adrian Peterson: 62.5 and 70.8. With AP: 95.4. Coincidence? I think not.

Then theres the enigma that is Vince Young in Tennessee. The guy has graced the cover of Madden but has failed to light the world on fire in the Music City and has also brought along some off the field issues and distractions. In his career, Young has played 33 games, starting the 15 games of both his rookie and sophomore seasons in the NFL. In that time, Young has a 57% completion percentage, a 22/32 TD/INT ratio, a 6.4 yd avg, and a 68.8 QB Rating. This is pretty average play from a Madden cover player, and he is now sitting behind Kerry Collins after a less than impressive preseason in 09.

Matt Leinart has also shown flashes in his playing time with Arizona, which amounts to 21 games, much higher than I had thought. He has only a 55% completion percentage and also sports a negative 14/17 TD/INT ratio surrounded by talent at WR. Leinart has shown progress though, but still sits behind a resurgent Kurt Warner for the reigning NFC champs, sporting a career QB rating of 80.2.

Finally is Jay Cutler, drafted by the Denver Broncos and quickly ejected out the other end quite appropriately in to Chicago. As of today, Cutler has far and away received the most playing time, with 36 games. Cutler has also been far and away been the most productive QB of the bunch and has thrown for 55 tds, compared to 41 INTs, including tonights laughable 1 TD, 4 INT performance. He's completed 62% of his passes, averaging about 7 yds and totes an 85.6 QB rating for his career. Looking at this its clear to see that at this point, Cutler has been the best but one has to wonder if the 2009 preseason and tonight's game are a harbinger of things to come. Cutler has been dumped into a situation similar to Croyle's or perhaps even worse: a team with a solid RB, meh oline and very shallow receiving corps, and so far he's performed much less than admirably there. Also he's Jay Cutler and thats lame, although he gets points for getting the hell out of Denver while the getting was good.

So then we have the legend himself, the Alabama Blacksnake, R2P2, Brokie, BroCro, Brodemus, Kelli's Husband, Vanilla Vick (as he was called by his UA teammates): Brodie Croyle. Croyle's only played in 14 games after being plagues (many would say predictably) by injury in his career.  In that time he sports a sucky 56% completion percentage. Today's game broke him even in his TD/INT ratio at 8/8 after throwing 2 picks in his only appearance against Pittsburgh in the 2006 season. His rating is 71.6. MEH. Some would point out though that Croyle hasn't been substantially outperformed in the same offense with the same talent, as Huard played better coming off his hot 06 campaign and Thigpen played better in Arrowspread, though markedly worse in Croyle's own offense. It could also be noted that Croyle has shown year-to-year improvement as a QB, posting an 11.9 QB rating in 06, a 69.9 QB rating in 07, an 81.3 rating in 08, and a 116.1 as of 1 game in 09 vs Baltimore, so he is certainly trending upwards, an idea bolstered by his preseason play this year and better play calling from Haley. We would also be remiss to discount Croyle's Hot Wife Rating and Hunting Knowledgability Score, which are both almost maxed out at 10, beating the rest of the pack by a county mile.

So four years in, here's how I rank the 2006 QB class that remains in the NFL. Honestly I think its mostly completely up for grabs and interchangeable.

1. Jay Cutler

2. Tavaris Jackson

3. Brodie Croyle

4. Matt Leinart

5. Kellon Clemons

6. Vince Young

7. Charlie Whitehurst (he hasn't screwed anything up or gotten cut)

8. Bruce Gradkowski

I haven't been able to put in the kind of research I'd like to for this little bit, so if I'm just factually wrong on any point please let me know.

Now lets jump right in.

Im feel certain that you haven't quite heard enough about whats going on with Tom Atencio, Fedor, Josh Barnett, M1,Affliction, etc, so I am going to go ahead and try and supply you with even more fodder. Looking over the way Affliction ran their business, I've noticed a few things that they were lacking that any successful promotion should really make priorities. Some of these things might of been missing just as a result of bad luck, uncooperative sponsors/potential partners, are a failure to sufficiently sacrifice skull babies to the moon god.

Theres two main things I think that were compounded by other missteps: they wanted to fancy themselves UFC competitors, and they relied heavily on Fedor to make that happen without making serious inroads at building up anyone other than Fedor or his victims.

The main thing I saw with Affliction MMA, and maybe this is just me, is that they followed the EliteXC model in putting all their eggs in one Russian basket in order to accomplish their misguided goal. Affliction refused to put on an event minus Fedor, and they couldn't have accomplished their goals without Fedor as they seemed to want to compete directly with the UFC, something impossible simply with the likes of Gilbert Yvel, Dan Lauzon, Babalu, Belfort or Chris Horodecki rounding out their ranks. This isn't to say they couldn't be a respected, internationally followed promotion, it is simply to say that they weren't going to be the company that challenged the UFC, or even Strikeforce for that matter, as there was simply a lack of mainland name recognition.

Think about it, without Fedor, what would Affliction have to offer with the name brand at stock level? Sylvia/Arlovski 4? We saw Belfort/Lindland, Sobral/Sokodjou, Barnett/Yvel. What else did Affliction had to offer? Nothing. So what they needed and sufficiently failed to do was to promote the rest of their roster, aside from building up Arlovski, and now Barnett. So when Arlovski lost, or Barnett either a: lost, or b: went to UFC, where would Affliction then be even if Trilogy had taken off? With Fedor and Fedor alone.

They could have very easily built up compelling storylines (which really they failed to do even with Fedor/Barnett) with guys like Matt Lindland, a spur in the UFC's side much in the style of Affliction and one of the best in the world, or the man who beat him, Vitor Belfort, the man who beat Randy Couture, Heath Herring and Wanderlei Silva, all brand name fighters. Even guys like Chris Horodecki, Little Nog, and Sokoudjou were highly marketable. But did anyone see any serious steps towards promoting these guys? This is an honest question, did anyone see these things in banner ads, magazine ads, taxi ads, billboards, etc?

Look at the UFC, as they are the masters at this. The Ultimate Fighter TV show ensures that they can plug in at least one or two fights with guys who are established names with relatively casual fans either through coaching or fighting. Aside from this, they invest in more than one fight on each of their events. UFC 100 had three big fights, UFC 99 pushed the Kongo v Herring/Velasquez as well as Franklin/Silva, UFC 98 pushed Hughes/Serra as well as Evans/Machida, UFC 97 pushed Liddell/Shogun as well as Silva/Lietes, etc etc right on down the line. This is why I dont put much stock in to it when people say the UFC is overstacking its cards. Truly they are setting themselves up for even more seemingly stacked cards in the future.

If Affliction had built up their lesser known but highly talented fighters, and relied less on Fedor, and submitted to the UFC superiority and recognized their current role in the MMA world, they could have still let Fedor v Monson/Na be the main event with strong co main events in any two of the Yvel/Buentello, Moussasi/Babalu or Horodecki/Lauzon fights, not to mention Gomi's appearance. These are strong, strong comain events for a midlevel promotion. But noooo, Affliction thought they were the bees knees wax.

EliteXC did the same thing in that they felt themselves a competitor for the UFC, and in that they went all in on a Kimbo card (something like pocket deuces), but they were different from Affliction in one way, a way that I give Affliction credit for: EliteXC lied to make a quick buck. They promoted Kimbo as a legitimate heavyweight contender, and paid the price dearly when he bit the Seth Petruzelli bullet. Affliction was never really dishonest in their promotion, maybe that was just because their demographic is generally more MMA-savvy than EliteXC's CBS demo with Kimbo. Promoters who want to stick around for a while really need to be honest or it WILL come back to bite them in the end.

Affliction seemed to do other things, or didnt, that I felt bid towards their demise. One thing is that their advertising had the military precision of Kyle Bradley in a paint mixer. In advertising these events, I feel they would have been better suited to have spent less money with ads that would reach many people who didnt care about MMA and more money towards the MMA crowd. Every radio ad you buy, lets say, reaches a lot of MMA fans, but your also paying to reach awhole hell of a lot of people who dont care about MMA and will not care about MMA. This poor strategy was compounded by their failure to build up their other fighters. A casual fan, I believe is less inclined to go to buy this event to watch JUST one fighter he's excited about, especially if the one hardcore MMA fan in his friend group doesn't seem super stoked about this fight because Affliction failed to pursue the hardcore MMA fan demographic sufficiently.

Or maybe Im wrong about everything and Im just coleko v2.0. Idk, let me know. Im done talking now either way.

PS Affliction makes pure crap clothes.

I honestly believe that Levi Brown is the most accurate passer in college football right now. I know that his body of evidence with which to support this claim is minimal, but I do not think that it is a completely outlandish statement. He played only 9 games for the Troy Trojans, starting only 7 of them after filling in for an injured Jamie Hampton.

But in this short span Brown, now a senior, was able to finish with a pass/td ratio of 15-3, a significant improvement from his two predecessors in Hampton and 06/07's Troy QB Omar Hougabook. This fact nearly makes up for a seemingly average completion percentage, which sat at 61.7% come seasons end. But its important to realize when looking at the completion stat that a number of Brown's accurate passes were simply dropped by an underachieving WR corps that really only featured Jerrell Jernigan at the time. Now though, the WR will be reenforced with the addition of Josh Jarboe from Oklahoma and the seeming rise to prominence of WR Chip Reeves.

Furthermore Brown suffered a handicap in the amount of pressure that was put on him to win the games almost entirely on his own. In a game against LSU in Baton Rouge, Brown and the Troy defense guided the Trojans to a 31-3 lead over the SEC team late in the third quarter. It was there where the team forgot how to milk the clock away with the running abilities of RB DuJuan Harris and instead called on Brown to take it to the air 72 times, of which he completely only a miserable 47% of his passes. This year Harris is back and with Neil Brown entering his second year as an offensive coordinator, look for these mistakes not to be made and for Brown to shine brighter in an offense that is built around him as opposed to a more mobile, mistake prone QB like Tanner Jones, Omar Hougabook or Jamie Hampton.

All of this and Brown finished the season with a QB rating of 127.31, and, during the bowl game, the analyst in the booth echoed my sentiments stating Brown was, "the most accurate passer Ive seen in college football."

If you dont buy into my hype, then we will wait til this season starts and he drops bombs all over Florida and Arkansas :D 

via media.dothaneagle.com

via 1.bp.blogspot.com

Did anyone watch ESPN First Take this morning? John Burke of Gracie Orlando was on talking to Dana about how he trains Shaq in mixed martial arts, traditional boxing, jiu jitsu, etc.

They talked for a few minutes about what problems training such a big guy presents, what kind of training they do with him, how he does, etc, then they asked Burke how Shaq would do against Chuck Liddell, to which Burke responded with something along the lines of "Stay tuned." She went on again and then later asked what are the chances of seeing Shaq in the Octagon with Chuck, and Burke again responded with something like "Stay tuned."

I certainly can't imagine that this would ever actually happen, but what do you think he might actually be hinting at, if anything? I thought it was interesting if nothing else and thought I'd share and ask if anyone else saw the segment?

Edit: Just found the video. 

http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=4146549

Im surprised this hasn't been posted yet, but here goes.

Former Jets QB Brett Favre could make an appearance at Browns camp this season as a guest of his former coach, Eric Mangini. Favre is still under contract with the Jets, but he could show up in Cleveland as an instructor for Browns QBs Derek Anderson and Brady Quinn, according to the New York Daily News:

“He might come out to training camp to visit,” Mangini said. “Maybe I will have him do the show team or just hang out.

“I don’t think it would be anything formal. It’s not like we are hiring him to run the scout team. I don’t think he would be interested in that. He would be more like a visitor. An open invite.”