Off The Press

Off the Press, I'm sick - heart sick, home sick and just plain sick.  However, with Richard Seymour resigning with the Patriots, I'm starting to feel a little better again.  As important as Tom Brady is to the New England Patriot offense, Richard Seymour is the rock upon which Bill Belichick has built his defense.  Seymour's value was manifested last year when the defense really lagged when he was out with minor injuries.  With Seymour in the fold, the Patriots can realistically count on being one of the top teams in the competitive AFC. 

The current Patriot dynasty was launched with two drafts picks, Tom Brady in the sixth round in 2000 and Richard Seymour in the first round in 2001.  In the age of the salary cap, the draft (especially now with only seven rounds) has become crucial to maintaining a competitive edge.  While it's still important to hit with one's first day picks, the latter rounds (4th - 7th) have become the litmus test for what separates a winning franchise from a perennial loser. Teams like Cleveland, Buffalo and St.Louis have all paid the price for lackluster drafts.  As a result, regime change has visited all of those locales in the last few years.

This year's draft promises to be a pivotal one.  However, who will go where is still a mystery. Clifton Brown, of the New York Times, writes, Uncertainty is No.1 as NFL draft nears.   "Though the Texans are expected to take running back Reggie Bush of Southern California with the No. 1 pick, every thing else remains uncertain, with two weeks remaining," notes Brown.  He uses his piece to address the question of who will be picked second after Bush.  Will it be Texas' Vince Young or USC's Matt Leinart?  Brown writes:

The quarterback debate is contentious also because the top prospects are not flawless.

Leinart may be the most prepared for immediate success, having played in a pro-style offense. But his arm is not especially strong, and he played on the most talented college team, so it is difficult to gauge how much he was responsible for the Trojans' dynamic offense.

Young is a superior athlete, but he has an unorthodox throwing motion and he took most of his snaps from the shotgun. He may have the biggest challenge adapting to a typical N.F.L. offense, but his running ability would add a new dimension to any team's attack. Cutler has a strong arm, but Vanderbilt never had a winning record, and he played in few high-profile games, unlike Leinart and Young.

Speaking of Vince Young, USA Today's Jarrett Bell writes, Young getting restless amid pre-draftstorm.  After being picked apart on everything from his intelligence quotient and his throwing motion, Vince Young is understandably a little prickly waiting for the draft to arrive.  Bell reports on Young's mood and on who might be trading up to get him.  Bell writes:

"You hear so much; it's something different every day," Young said in the midst of a whirlwind NFL tour that had him visiting the Miami Dolphins, picking 16th. "I don't feed into it a lot. You never know what's going to happen."

Of course, Young doesn't expect to be sitting in that backstage green room when the 16th pick comes around.

"Hey," he said, "Miami might trade up and snatch me up quick."

Hmmm!

Why trade for Daunte Culpepper?  Is this a smokescreen, or is Miami really serious? 

For confirmation of that rumor, yeah or nay, Armando Salguero, of the Miami Herald, offers this headline, Pick no. 16 will be sweet indeed if Young falls into the Dolphins lap.  According to Salguero, Nick Saban has been a Vince Young fan since Young was a 14 year-old wunderkind in Houston (Jerome Solomon of the Boston Globe would testify to that).  Salguero writes:

Saban recruited Young, and the player picked Texas over LSU in what sources close to Young say was a very difficult decision. The Dolphins are among the handful of teams Young has visited leading up to the April 29-30 draft.

Miami hopes Young might fall to No. 16 or that vicinity, which is one reason coaches spent time with him this week. The Dolphins have needs at backup quarterback, outside linebacker, cornerback, nose tackle and perhaps receiver.

But even if Young might not fill the immediate need for an experienced backup quarterback, Saban sees Young, or practically any talented young quarterback, as a player who can be dealt later for multiple draft picks that would be valuable for the team.

If I didn't know Saban was a Belichick clone I would take that account less than seriously.  However, knowing Saban is a Belichick disciple gives the story some plausibility.  After all, the Belichick philosophy places value above all else.  It was Belichick who drafted super stud TE Ben Watson in the first round in 2004, a mere two years after having drafted Colorado TE Dan Graham in the first round.  Saban is no different.  If he sees Young as a value pick (if he slips), count on the Dolphins making a move.  With the dodgy nature of Culpepper's injured knee, who knows?

Truth be told, though, it is highly unlikely Vince Young will slip lower than the Raiders pick at number seven.  In fact, Yahoo's Charles Robinson has Vince Young going to the Titans at number three in his latest mock draft. Also on the Yahoo football page, the Sporting News' Paul Attner has a terrific story on the harrowing path Penn State's Tamba Hali (my compatriot) took from the killing fields of Liberia to being a potential NFL first round pick.  "By the grace of God, I'm alive," is the story's title and Hali's view on surviving the civil war that extinguished over a quarter-million Liberian lives. As a Liberian, I can't convey to you how surreal even writing that is - tragic!!

Surrealism forms an oblique sub-theme in the unfolding Duke Lax rape case.  I'm loathe to comment without being well-versed on the facts, but whatever the truth is, you can bet that it will be sordid in the extreme.  David Zirin (whom I believe is one of the smartest people writing sports today) looks at the Duke rape case in a powerful article, privilege meets protest at Duke University, available on znet. Zirin co-authors the article with Kevin Prosen a freelance writer from Durham.  It is some potent stuff.  Here's an excerpt:

The case in question is by now widely known; Lacrosse players at an elite campus hired two young African- American women as exotic dancers, one a student at NCCU. While details aren't yet clear, the woman has injuries consistent with being raped and sodomized. Lawyers for the team have gone on a remorseless counter-offensive. A new well-heeled booster club called the Committee for Fairness to Duke Families hired the ultimate authority in smearing women who "cry rape": Bill Clinton's former attorney Bob Bennett. Bennett has already begun, saying, "A lot of innocent young people and the families are being hurt, and unfortunately this situation is being abused by people with separate agendas. It is grossly unfair, and cool heads must prevail."

Bennett and his team have also released personal details about the assault victim. This gets the spotlight off the confirmed squalidness of the case. 911 calls report racist epithets being screamed by men in the party house. Ryan McFayden, a sophomore on the Lacrosse squad, sent an e-mail dated the night of the party describing in morbid detail his fantasy of torturing the exotic dancers, saying, "I plan on killing the bitches as soon as they walk in and proceeding to cut their skin off while cumming in my Duke issue spandex." The same McFayden had the unholy arrogance to show up at the Take Back the Night Rally on campus and while sexual assault survivors gathered in a circle, he stood on the sidelines giving interviews with the Chronicle, Duke's odious student paper.

The racial climate on campus is utterly appalling and this isn't isolated in the world of Lacrosse. Others on campus have noted parties with vile themes, like the "Viva Mexico" bash where students handed out "Green Cards" for invitations.  Danielle Terrazas Williams, a grad student at Duke, told the Independent, a local weekly "This [the rape] is not a different experience for us [African-Americans] here at Duke University. We go to class with racist classmates, we go to gym with people who are racists. That's not special for us." Commenting on the persistent sexual harassment faced by black women at Duke, Williams continued, "[it's] as if they're re-enacting a rap video or something. As if we're there to be their video ho..."

Many students, at least the ones that speak from the conservative Chronicle's pulpit, don't seem to grasp what the fuss is about. A screed by Duke junior Stephen Miller is typical: "...we are Durham's main attraction. Every time we set foot off-campus, we're actually leaving the best thing the city has to offer- and in turn, entering some of the most violent neighborhoods in the state. Duke is Durham's lifeblood, plain and simple. So if we want to stay on campus or to limit our interaction with Durham...then we have nothing to apologize for. If anything, the insistence on interacting with Durham locals is condescending to the town residents. Durham isn't a petting zoo. The residents won't get lonely or irritable if we don't play with them."

This is what we're up against - a cabal of spoiled jerks with temerity and zero common sense or compassion. Welcome to Amerikkka!!  Disgusting!!

Happy Easter folks!!

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