SB Nation User Blog: troy145

Brodie Croyle Needs a Haircut

troy145 — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 22:48:42 -0000

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.

Flag Football ?

troy145 — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 04:46:48 -0000

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.

Is Brodie Croyle the best QB of the 06 Draft Class?

troy145 — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 05:38:41 -0000

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

Update on Siddell Corly

troy145 — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 20:07:59 -0000

Update on Siddell Corly

From the Dothan Eagle's Troy sports beat writer, Drew Champlin. It looks as if Corley is leaning towards Troy.

My Thoughts on Afflictions Demise

troy145 — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 03:45:46 -0000

PS WTF how in God's name do I format a picture in to this bizzle?

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.

Levi Brown - Most Accurate Passer in CFB

troy145 — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 20:54:40 -0000

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

Shaquille Oneal vs Chuck Liddell?

troy145 — Wed, 06 May 2009 20:20:13 -0000

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

Wilson heading to Atlanta, four others to sign as free agents

troy145 — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 08:40:46 -0000

Wilson heading to Atlanta, four others to sign as free agents

From the article:

"Also coming to agreement with teams were former Alabama tight ends Nick Walker (Minnesota) and Travis McCall (Buffalo), defensive end Bobby Greenwood (Kansas City), and guard Marlon Davis (Cleveland)."

Favre to the Browns? Kinda...

troy145 — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 20:09:18 -0000

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.”

The rest of the story can be found here: http://blogs.nfl.com/2009/03/25/favre-could-end-up-at-browns-camp/

WBC Article from College Paper

troy145 — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 20:36:01 -0000

Found this article in a local university's sports section and thought I'd share it:

Over the last few weeks, some of you may have looked up from March Madness just long enough to notice there was some crazy thing going on in the world of professional baseball. Of course, there was spring training but, something other than that. I can tell youre stumbling around the inside of your head looking for that apparently trivial bit of sports knowledge, so let me help you out. That thing was the World Baseball Classic, and Im willing to bet you did not care one lick about it, and for that, I am very upset with you. And for that matter, I am upset with team USA.

First of all, Mr. Casual Sports Fan, I have to say Im thoroughly disappointed in you. You sat around watching Louisville beat Morehead State into a bloody pulp in the first round of the NCAA tournament, while meanwhile, Ichiro Suzuki and Daisuke Matsuzaka of Team Japan were squaring off against South Korea in an elimination match en route to a match up against Team USA. How could you make such a horrible decision? The Boston Red Sox most dominant starting pitcher, coupled with one of the most consistent hitters and fielders, on their way to take on Team USA.

Let us not forget that Team USA featured some of the most talented, most exciting names in baseball, featuring the likes of Roy Oswalt, Chipper Jones, Jimmy Rollins, and more. Yes, THAT Chipper Jones, the one who posted a ridiculous .364 batting average last year. Yes, THAT Jimmy Rollins, the one who is a two time Golden Glove winner and just two years ago had a ridiculous .531 slugging percentage.

But instead, when the cold, calculated, determined machine that was Team Japan knocked off the star studded American squad, you watched UConn predictably dismantle a Texas A&M team that never stood chance, 92-66.

But thats okay, because that only brings me to my next point: what in the world were they thinking when they, whoever they are, let Davey Johnson manage this baseball squad?

This is the man who early in the tournament, threatened to forfeit the rest of Team USA’s games if the injury bug did not give it up. In short, he was down with the idea of quitting. In games like the one in which the US would get eliminated against Japan, in a roster stacked with offense, but lacking in fielding, Johnson put 35 year old geezer and generally overrated all star Derek Jeter at short stop, while three time all star and two time golden glove winner Jimmy Rollins hung around in a designated hitter position. Finally, with the game on the line against Japan, and the USA’s championship hopes fading quickly, who did Davey Johnson send to the mound to close out the game? Joel Hanrahan. Who the heck is Joel Hanrahan? Whoever he was, he was not Scot Shields, the other available closer who sports a 2.93 career ERA.

In short, Johnson was okay with losing. And judging from the apathy of the few American fans who stumbled across ESPN2 in time to see a few WBC games, neither does the rest of America. This is not even the World Cup, where we can say, “So what? We dont play soccer.”

This is baseball. This is what America is. And were okay with losing at it, in an embarrassing fashion.

As for me, I used to think famed World War 2 General George S Patton was right when he said, “Americans love a winner. Americans will not tolerate a loser. Americans despise cowards. Americans play to win all of the time.”

Now though, Im not so sure.