Mish Mash Of Shat

As I venture into the last few days of tax season, and my life is about to begin anew, I had a couple of things in my brain to spew out:

-Excellent article by UCSB616, although I disagree on the best month of the sports year. My vote would be for October. NFL and College Football in full swing, and the entirety of MLB playoffs. I would argue that the NBA playoffs in April add little to nothing to my sports enjoyment. Wake me in July or August, or whenever the fuck the Finals finally start (unless there are Deer to Fear, which there is most certainly not this year). I will watch a smattering of games, but they won't be appointment television for the most part. It probably helps if you root for the Lakers.

-I love me some Tony Plush (aka Nyjer Morgan if you live in the 1990's and aren't on Twitter yet). He is my favorite Brewer right now. I just like the way he plays, and his gentleman alter ego helps. My favorite running joke right now is that I'm going to love him until he murders Braun or Yo in their sleep. Because he is allegedly crazy. But he hustles his ass off, he's fast, he's exciting, he seems to care (or not know where he is, I can't tell), and he can get on base. I'm enjoying this ride while it lasts. Tonight, he murdered Ryan Domut on a play at the plate, which is the second catcher he took out, and if remember last year, he has a bit of a history with this. I would post a YouTube video of this, but (Sports Bottle's) god forbid MLB allows YouTube videos.

-Barry Bonds is going to prison. I guess you don't fuck with the G. I guess I'm glad he got convicted because approximately .03 cents of my paychecks for the last five years (and every other American) was put towards the costs of prosecution.

-The NFL has a draft coming up in a few weeks, and I couldn't be less excited. Normally, I LOVE the draft, and get super excited for it. I'm not sure if I'm not excited because of the lockout garbage (probably) or because the Packers WON THE FUCKING SUPER BOWL!!!! and I don't feel like they need much. Part of me will feel guilty for watching the draft because I feel like I'm condoning these assholes. But not enough of me that I won't watch it.

-The Brewers-Cubs game Sunday was a success. I didn't get beaten into a coma for wearing a Brewer jersey, even though I'm 30 years old. My brother and his two friends didn't either. And there were a shitload of Cubs fans nearby. Had some beers, enjoyed the ridiculous 80 degree weather, and watched the Cubs fans cheer like they won the World Series after throwing out Weeks stealing.....after McGehee hit the two run pinch hit homer to put us ahead. Cubs fans are stupid. Also, as we were walking out, some random dude showed me a picture of a Cubs fan passed out inside Miller Park, and he pissed himself.

I'll Survive Without Clay, and Bucky Will Too

John Clay is following the example of the immortal P.J. Hill and leaving early for the NFL despite the fact that he will not be picked anywhere near high enough to make most players traditionally want to leave. Clay is a lot better than P.J. Hill ever was, so I'm not going to say I am HAPPY he is leaving like I was when Hill left. And I don't blame Clay, because his stock is probably not going to get higher (in fact, he should've left last year). I guess my point in this rambling, incoherent post, is that Clay was only arguably the best RB on the team, and more likely part of a 3 headed monster with Ball and White. While 3 headed monsters are nice, they can get frustrating because Brett is more likely to not play the hot hand in order to give someone their share of the carries, which may not work out in the Badgers' best interest. Bucky will be fine, especially since there are two good freshman coming too. We will miss J.J. Watt a whole lot more.

Clay will stick in the league for quite a while if he can stay healthy. If P.J. Hill and DeShawn Wynn can play, Clay can. But he's probably not a starting back. But who knows? I never thought Ryan Grant was good until he got hurt and I had to watch Brandon Jackson play.

I Sympathize With Big Ben

Hello everyone. I'm back from my two week suspension for violation of the Internets' Personal Conduct Policy. Hopefully I'll be around a bit more from now on. That assumes I can keep my head on straight, and stay out of college bars in Millegeville, GA. I want to thank my teammates: Bear, Sports Bottle, Twinkie and Loaf Cobra for picking up the slack and leading the team to victories in my absence. I hope the Steelers have similar success when Ben is gone.

PACKER DRAFT REACT

Going in, I wanted a tackle, a corner, an outside LB and a safety. And possibly a RB. Anything else is fine to fill in our picks. I was mildly thrilled with Bryan Bulaga. He fills an immediate need, can hopefully start when Chad Clifton or Tauscher gets hurt, and since neither is a guarantee to be around next year, gives us a starter to plug in for the next 10 years or so. Bulaga was alleged to be going in the top 10, so I felt pretty good about getting him where we did.

What happened afterwards was a little different. Not that I've heard of every player in this draft or anything, but when you have a bunch of guys available that you know are pretty good, and fit positions of need, I can't stand when we take a guy I've never heard of. Round 2 was an absolutely classic Ted Thompson move by taking Mike Neal. I suppose it never hurts to have another D-lineman, but this was not a big need compared to the things listed above, and this appeared to be a huge reach. Round 3 actually looked like a pretty good pick. Everywhere I saw had Morgan Burnett as a 2nd round pick, and we certainly needed a safety. Round 5 it was back to classic Thompson, taking a TE even though we have 3 pretty decent ones on the roster, and a likely future Pro Bowler in Finley. I think if you are going to take someone at a position where you have a bunch of guys already, you should probably take a dude that is GUARANTEED to be good. The last Round 5 pick, I guess we took a guard. Fine with that I guess. Colledge is a douche, and is now officially expendable. Not exciting at all. I dunno. In Ted I trust, I'm sure it will work out.

In other news, why didn't we trade for Leon Washington? Seattle gave up nothing to get him. He is exactly what we needed. He is fast, can catch, can return kicks.

Finally, moving the draft to Thursday was genius. I legitimately forgot that the NBA playoffs were even happening. NFL is king.

BREWERS

What a roller coaster. I was looking for something tall to jump off of last Saturday after we lost to the Nats. Then we nearly blew last Sunday after a 10 run first. Then we DESTROYED the Pirates, and we were for sure going to win the World Series. Then Soup pitched. The best quote I read this morning reads as follows: "...The more important question is how long the organization will continue to trot Suppan to the mound every five days. He no longer has the stuff to be an effective big league starter, and it is becoming borderline irresponsible for Ken Macha and Doug Melvin to stick by the veteran simply because of his salary." Amen.

THE FUTURE AND STUFF

Tomorrow, my wife and I (who LOVE kids :)) are babysitting for my 3 year old twin nieces. I'm sure nothing terrible will happen.

Since Roger Goodell screwed me out of getting hammered with my second family today by moving the draft to Thursday, I have to look forward to Shit In My Eye as the next out of body drinking experience. I am going to guess that I will get drunk.

You are on notice that the OJSFA Owner's Meeting will take place at the Days Inn on Washington St. in Green Bay next Saturday. BYOB. Watch your emails.

I received my San Diego Padres/Washington National tickets in the mail today. Going on a mini-vacation at the end of May, and am going to check out Petco. And probably drink a margarita or ten. I hope to (Sports Bottle's) god, Strasburg gets called up and starts for the Nats.

DVR ALERT!!!!!!

Games 3 and 4 of the Bucks/Hawks sweep. Not that anyone other than my brother will watch anyway.

Roger Goodell Is Stealing Booze From Me

Well, it looks like the annual draft party is history. Roger Goodell is personally seeing to it that I get obnoxiously drunk one less time in 2010. I heard the next plan is to have the NFL take away Oktoberfest as well.

If you ask me, the clear motivation for making the draft three days, and turning it into a Thursday thru Saturday affair, was jealousy of the OJSFA draft. The NFL cannot stand that someone else has a better/ridiculously long/insanely complicated draft process than them. Also the OJSFA draft is a ratings bonanza. But the NFL couldn't go all the way, so they will slowly creep in one year at a time, until they are making one pick every day from March 1 to August 1. And making each pick an hour long show. Still, until there is a two day black out drunk celebration of the NFL draft, it will be nowhere near the Orenthal James Simpson Football Association, whose draft will be completed a mere 15 days from now!

PS. I totally came into work an hour early with the intention of working, but I instead made some fantasy baseball roster moves and took up space on the internets with a useless post about a "sporting event" that is going to take place in 9 months.

Draft Review

As I settle in for a non-HD Brewer game (what the fuck?)(ED NOTE: That bitch Jeff Karstens just purposely drilled Braun in the back, and now Macha is bitter that Looper won't get a free shot later), I figured I would try to pump out the long awaited NFL Draft/Packer Draft/Draft Party/Swearing in front of little kids party, review.

PACKERS

I was thoroughly impressed. It seems like everyone else was too. Many important publications have used thier publishing power to declare the Packers draft to be superior to many others. Although part of me wanted Crabtree, I think they did the smart thing. (Until Crabtree has 17 catches for 161 yards and 3 TDs against GB later this year, and Raji turns into Cletedius Hunt). I like the idea of the Pack trading up to get Matthews more than I actually like Matthews probably, but I don't get paid to decide these things, so right now, I'm going to assume Matthews is the greatest non-steroid abusing LB to gain 80 lbs of muscle and go from walk on to 1st round NFL pick in 3 years. Both guys should start (and lets be honest, if Matthews can't beat out Poppinga, Thompson might as well pack his bags now). I feel like we added some decent depth later on, even though I've heard of none of them.

NFL

-What in the fuck were the Raiders doing? Seriously, I can't wait until they sign Vick later in the year. I almost feel like someone needs to assassinate Al Davis.

-How is Josh Freeman a number one pick? I'll be honest, I watch a lot of college football, and I think the only time I ever heard of him was when Allan Everidge of UW transferred here because he lost the job to Freeman. Everidge couldn't stay ahead of Dustin Sherer. Who sucks. I'm just saying, this NFL draft thing is bizarre sometimes. You could logically make the argument that Freeman was no better than the 6th QB in his CONFERENCE (Bradford, McCoy, Harrell, Daniels and maybe the fat kid from Kansas). So essentially, Tampa is dropping 20 mil or so on a guy who is big, fast, has a strong arm, but is the QB of a 5-7 team (including two wins over North Texas and Montana St.). I realize that doesn't mean everything, but I guess my point is that the NFL draft is weird.

-I'm glad to see that the Lions will suck for 6 more years. Stafford may not have even been the best QB in the draft. Most years he would have been a late first rounder at best. He is a less musically inclined version of Joey Harrington.

- I'm glad to see that the Vikings remain the Oakland Raiders of the NFC. But really, 5'6", injury prone potheads generally make great NFL wide receivers. How tall are you LoafCobra? And even if Harvin does end up being good, you can guarantee Childress is going to piss away at least two years trying to figure out how to use him effectively. He is a shorter version of Troy Williamson.

-The Bears drafted nobody of consequence, but all the experts are trying to pass off a trade for a third year alcoholic, diabetic quarterback as a draft pick because he was traded for draft picks. Fucking stupid.

THE P.J. HILL EXPERIMENT

"The fucking plane has crashed into the fucking mountain!"--The Big Lebowski

-I've always been a huge fan of P.J. (cough). This has got to be one of the stupidest things anyone has ever done. I realize he probably wasn't helping his stock all that much by coming back. Bielema has been trying to get him out for two years now, and I'm pretty certain John Clay is your starter no matter what. But if the writing was on the wall, don't you think he could have transferred somewhere? Somewhere that he could have played? Someone would have let him come over (D-II or something). He had some talent, just not enough speed or durability to make it in the Big Ten. But why just give up? Obviously, he wasn't drafted, and he still hasn't made it on as free agent any place. So now what? No free education, and no football. McDonald's here we come!

DRAFT PARTY

-It started out with Richard and his family eschewing the checking into the hotel, so they could go directly to the Tilted Kilt. Which is really a sluttier version of Hooters. My wife's favorite saying is "I really want to go back there because the food was so good, but all the saggy tits in my food is disgusting." What she really meant to say is, "If the chicks were hotter, we would go there once a week." After that we headed over to the Stadium View and drank a little. I was driving the wife so I didn't drink too much.

-Running Diary of Saturday (what I remember. Perhaps Richard can fill in the voids)

I really would like to apologize for what I think was a bitch performance (maybe I'm wrong). But I really don't remember much at all. I don't know if it was the fact that I don't drink as much as I used to, the fact that I've lost 20 lbs or the fact that I ate 5 chicken wings the entire day.

10:30am-- I arrive at Stadium View for a bloody.

11:00am-- I order a beer.

11:30am-- We order one of those giant ass tubes full of beer, and 4 of us destroy it in less than an hour.

12:30pm-- I go stand in the freezing ass cold/rain outside Lambeau. I am about a 7 out of 10 trashed already.

2:00pm--We are let in. I dash to the elevator for a $4.50 beer.

2:15-4 ish-- I stay pretty decent until the Packers pick. I remember all of that pretty clearly.

4 to 10-- A bunch of shit happened I guess.

I remember wandering around and drinking.

I remember pissing alot.

I remember looking at Lambeau from a Skybox.

I remember having at least 2 shots at Curly's and straight up giving up watching the draft by about pick 28.

I remember having quite a few more beers.

The only conversation I remember at all was with the 90 year old dude who is an emeritus member of the Packer board, and he foolishly let Richard and I wear his Super Bowl ring.

I remember that there are pictures of this.

I remember taking that cheap ass, ugly ass hat they gave us at the door and bending the brim upside down (or that might have been Richard, I don't remember).

I remember for some reason wandering about 3/4 of the way around the stadium outside.

I remember getting into a cab to go to "Fuzzy's #63" to go hang out with Packer great Fuzzy Thurston.

I know we had at least one more shot there, and I'm sure I had a beer.

I then remember an overwhelming urge to vomit, although I'm pretty sure I didn't.

Then I remember my wife coming to pick us up at what I'm pretty sure was like 10:30.

It is entirely possible that I had no further conversation with anyone, and that I was in a fetal position in the corner for about 5 hours of the day. Above is all I remember, and that stuff couldn't have taken more than like 10 minutes.

In conclusion, I better get my shit together for Shit In My Eye. I've got a good warm up Saturday. I'm going on some type of bus to a Brewer game. I'll have to turn in a better performance.

I look forward to hearing what actually happened from Richard.

Pre-Draft Manifesto

I've got quite a bit of time on my hands right now, so I figured I would drop some stink nuggets regarding the upcoming draft, the Packers, and how drunk I plan to get on Saturday.

-I think the Packers need to address the following needs, in order: 1)D-Line, 2) OLB, 3)O-Tackle, 4)Corner. We could also probably use some depth at: 1)Safety, 2)G/C, 3) and to a lesser extent TE/RB/QB. Essentially, we don't really have much use for a WR drafted anywhere before about the 6th round.

-Ted's wish list is as follows: 1)WR, 2)TE, 3)QB, 4)RB, 5)K. Also, a few trade downs are likely. I would expect some ejections from Lambeau on Saturday if we draft anything but a oft discussed player for the front seven, a tackle or Michael Jenkins. I suppose if Crabtree fell to us, you wouldn't hear too many complaints, as he appears to be somewhat special, and if you can get a special gamebreaker, I suppose you get him.

-My head tells me that there is no way Thompson goes off the reservation with this pick and picks someone we've never heard of, or trades the pick. But every year, he does something semi-insane (other than drafting Hawk), so I really have no reason to think he won't do it again. It is really pretty useless to even guess, because he is obviously alot smarter than me, because I'm writing about him doing a job, and he is (sort of) actually doing the job.

-Best Case Scenario #1: Trades the pick in some sort of package to get Julius Peppers.

-Best Case Scenario #2: He stays put and gets an impact player for the 3-4, or our left tackle for the next 10 years.

-Worst Case Scenario #1: Stays put and picks Mark Sanchez or Beanie Wells (I've seen both predicted by "experts")

-Worst Case Scenario #2: Stays put and picks someone truly random like Ted Thompson special: Casey Fitzgerald, WR from North Texas (113 catches).

-Worst Case Scenario #3: Thompson trades down for a 5th, 6th and two 7ths, is murdered by a dude who had a gun under his cheese head, and the ensuing riot burns down Lambeau, forcing the Packers to play their home games at City Stadium for the next 5 years before crumbling under the economy/lack of salary cap, and eventually moving to LA.

- I think he plays it close to the vest this year, because he has always been a little disliked in GB, and one more bad season might lead to his forced departure.

-I plan to drink alot. My assumption is that not only will I drink a shitload of beer, but that Richard's brother is going to revert to age 22 and spend about $700 buying rounds of shots starting at like noon. I plan to be semi-embarrassing when my wife inevitably meets us out at like 8 pm and I can no longer talk. I've got three months of taxes, and a diet which has left me with a bunch of pent up drinking aggression that is going to be let out on Saturday.

-I plan to use the word fuck about 7,460 times Saturday, with the frequency increasing as the day goes on. I bet I have at least one parent yell at me for swearing in front of their six year old.

-Richard's sister will cut in line in front of a handicapped/old/young person to get an autograph from a grown up who gets paid to play football.

-I will be a grown man who wears another grown man's jersey.

-Richard's dad will spend somewhere between $20 and $6,000 on random Packer touristy memorabilia, that will probably contain Calvin wearing a Packer uniform, pissing on a Viking logo.

-We will all order the same thing at Stadium View (boneless hot wings, bloody mary, miller lite chaser).

-We will all fit right in with "those people".

Things and Stuff

More rambling, incoherent thoughts and biased opinions (with bullet points!):

- I am now officially excited again for the NFL. The Pack opens on a Sunday night against the Bears, and I was notified that I am the recipient of the right to purchase Packer tickets at face value because I allegedly am paying for Lambeau Field through my taxes. Finally, a mere four weeks until I pay $5 a beer and watch the draft in an uncomfortable chair, while waiting for Theodore Thompson to turn our first round pick into three sixths and three sevenths.

- I am now going to Brewer games on consecutive weekends in May. May 2 v. Arizona and May 9 v. the Cubs. The fucking spring training schedule has to be like twice as long as the previous longest doesn't it? Maybe it is because I've been working my ass off, and actually watching spring training box scores refresh on my computer screen, but it feels like they've played like 60 fake games. Do baseball players REALLY need to play like 250 games a year? I'm just sayin'. I'm also just sayin' that on MLB '09: The Show, Manny and a healthy Ben Sheets were just sitting on the free agent list at the all star break, and I had money in my budget, so I signed them both, and sent Soup and Weeks down to AAA to make room (and both cleared waivers to get there because neither had minor league options, that is how bad they both suck).

- I really couldn't care less about women playing basketball, and this will be about the last time I post anything about it. But how am I, the sports fan, supposed to take your tournament seriously when you are having number one seeds (in this case Duke), playing fucking ROAD games in the second round against number nine seeds (Michigan St.). My assumption is that the reason is three-fold: 1) they couldn't fill a neutral site game, 2) travel expenses (although Durham to East Lansing is pretty far), 3) size of venue that you may be able to fill. Either way, it is a fucking joke. Imagine if UNC had to go on the road against LSU in the men's tournament? Stupid.

- So Donte Stallworth (allegedly, although not officially charged, so I guess rumoredly) murdered some dude with his car. What I find remarkably odd about the situation is that ESPN has gone out of its way to report that the guy who died might not have been in a cross walk and Stallworth "flashed his lights" to warn him. My thought is "What is your fucking point?" From my standpoint (and depending on the laws of whatever state he was in) if Stallworth was drunk (which has been reported) it doesn't matter if the dude he killed was chasing traffic. If he was drunk, and killed someone, he will probably go to prison. And the slant that I feel is being put on this thing, that somehow being killed was the other guy's fault because "he was flashed with headlights" is retarded. If anything, it makes it worse for Stallworth, because if true, Stallworth clearly saw the guy, and just kept trucking rather than, I dunno, stopping. Just a strange situation. I don't want to come off like I've already convicted the guy, because if he wasn't drunk, then this all probably moot, and maybe he was sober, I dunno. I'm just saying the whole thing is odd.

Richard Spielman & the none-use of draft picks

While Juice took a look at the Green Bay Packers draft and wondered aloud about the validity of their selections, I will now look at the Minnesota Vikings to see how they fared (I don't like Wisconsin teams!!!). It seemed to me that the Vikings were paranoid about losing a player that they had targeted. They traded up in the second and fifth rounds to get their players, all at the expense of other draft picks. It's not like we are one player away from the super bowl, this is a team that finished 8-8 last year. We need all of the good/cheap young talent that we can find. It seems like the Vikings, a team that normally does a decent job identifying needs and talent, have sacrificed some valuable young players for the sake of their draft board. That being said, here is a rundown of their selections.

1st round: Of course this went to Kansas City in the Jared Allen trade. While I can't argue with acquiring a stud defensive end, especially since Derrick Harvey went 8th overall to Jacksonville for a 1st, two 3rds and a 4th, it seems like the Vikings and their fans may have raised the expectations too much. After all Tarvaris Jackson is still the starting quarterback. I'm not saying that Vikings should have looked quarterback with their first round pick, I'm just saying that the 2008 season will be defined by the quarterback play, not the defensive end. All the Super Bowl talk needs to go away until the Vikings prove that they can actually, you know, win more games than they lose.

2nd round: The Vikings selected S Tyrell Johnson from Arkansas St. I have no problems with this pick, it's just the manner in which they used it. The Vikings traded up four spots, in front of the rival Detroit Lions and Chicago Bears, to select a safety. I was expecting them to take Chad Henne or Brian Brohm. Needless to say, I was a little disappointed when I heard Johnson's name called. The Vikings have a strong team, but need some insurance at quarterback (Gus Frerotte doesn't count, no matter what Tommy says about him). Now we have a backup safety to take Darren Sharper's job in 2009. We had to trade up to get this?*

*Of course they had to trade up. Johnson was rated 17th on the Vikings board.

3rd round: Oh yeah, the Vikings didn't have a third round pick. We traded both of them.

4th round: Oh yeah, the Vikings didn't have a fourth round pick. We traded it.

5th round: We got our quarterback. I couldn't be happier. I love taking quarterbacks that were successful at big time colleges. John David Booty is exactly the kind of quarterback the Vikings needed to come away with. He's much more ready to make an impact than say, Joe Flacco of Delaware.** Of course the Vikings had to trade up to get him. Let's hope he has a great pre-season so he can become the starting quarterback sooner than later. Even so, Booty is a quarterback that was taken in the fifth round. Maybe I should temper my expectations a tiny bit. I just can't shake the feeling that he is already better than Tarvaris Jackson.

**The only other players from the University of Delaware in the NFL are TE Ben Patrick of Arizona and S Mike Adams of Cleveland. Can we say football powerhouse!!!

5th round: Wow another pick. Letroy Guion DT from Florida St. From what I've been told, he is the single biggest reason for the resurrection of Florida St. football. Great pick!!!

6th round: Wow two more picks. Although I can't say that I know anything about either player the Vikings selected. It does seem like they drafted a potential replacement for the superb Matt Birk. Oh yeah, and a potential kick returner from Jackson St. Whatever.

7th round: Fittingly, the Vikings had no picks in the 7th round. They were, of course, traded.

Overall, I think it was a so so performance. The Vikings came away with some seemingly useful players and a bona fide defensive end. It just seems like they could have done more.


P.S. Like Juice, I will use the royal we when discussing these teams: Minnesota Twins, Vikings, Timberwolves, Gophers, and of course the St. Louis Rams. R-A-M-S! Rams! Rams! Rams!

Theodore Thompson and the Questionable Use of Draft Picks

Ted Thompson is surely a much smarter man than me. At least in regards to football, I would assume. My experience as an NFL GM is based on years of making sketchy trades, and being able to tell if 85 is more than 82 in Madden. That is what makes the NFL Draft so interesting when Thompson is prominently involved. Lets take a look at a couple of the decisions made:

1) Trading down from 30. Not a bad move at all. Probably assumed their guy would be available at 36....

2) I guess he was, because he picked a guy I hadn't heard of in Jordy Nelson. Again, I need to defer to the professional here. I have the utmost faith in double T's ability to evaluate talent, but wow. Second year in a row that he takes a guy I've never heard of, at a position that was the deepest on our team. And the guy is white. Now, far be it from me to tell someone they can't do something because of the color of their skin. But its not as if there have been a long line of hall of fame wideouts with his tone. Here is the list since 1980: Steve Largent. That's the list.

3) Brian Brohm: I guess we need a backup. Poor poor Jerry Baab is going to have to go for that assistant manager position at Piggly Wiggly after all. I would have rather had some crusty old veteran to be honest. Unless Rodgers goes down with a very serious injury, how does this help our team exactly? We are SCREWED if Rodgers goes down. (I will be using the term WE to refer to the following teams: Packers, Badgers, Brewers, Creighton Bluejays. If you don't like it, don't read it).

4) The rest of their picks besides Matt Flynn: No problem other than another wideout I guess. The other picks all addressed a specific need.

5) Matt Flynn: Seriously. He was in a QB battle at LSU with Ryan Perrileux (sp?) his entire career. There is little to no chance of him making the roster. Why waste this pick?

Overall, I will defer to our leader. I believe he knows what he's doing. He hasn't missed on very many guys. I will have more analysis later when I find out that Jermichael Finley used to be a woman.

Caleb Campbell

I plan on writing about the draft with a topic of much more relevance than the safety from Army that the Lions took in the 7th round of today's draft, however something about this whole situation really put a bad taste in my mouth.

I understand that it's a fantastic story for this young kid, first player to be drafted out of army in a decade. The Army also recently changed a rule regarding graduates heading to the NFL, Campbell does not have to report to duty, he can do recruiting work and exchange his time he's supposed to serve now, for reserve duty time later on. The media is very adamant about mentioning how his opportunity in the NFL is keeping him from having to serve to fulfill his duty as a soldier, but I just feel like they are missing out on two big points.

What I don't understand is how the Army makes this decision? You've enlisted at West Point, we are paying for your education so that you will become a better member of the US Army, however if you're good at football, you can go play that instead. What? What if someone at the academy was really good at gardening? Could he or she get drafted by Martha Stewart and then be able to put off their military obligations for a few years? So basically they've made a specific loophole rule for football players. Another issue I have with the media coverage is that the articles about this player, or the reactions to this article very often seem to be to the tune of, oh thank god this young player doesn't have to throw his life away in Iraq or Afghanistan. Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Caleb Campbell, of his own free will, choose to apply to the Army and enroll in their school to become an officer? An education that the Army then paid for? And room and board that the Army also paid for? And I also believe that Mr Campbell also was paid by the Army to be there in school. So the Army has invested all of this time and money into a future officer that up to this day, and for the forseeable future, will not actually be doing the job he was being trained to do in school.

Why? His obligations during his time in football will be to work as a recruiter. With the amount of face time Campbell received during the second day of the draft and if Campbell actually becomes a success in the NFL, how effective of a recruiter would this guy become? He could basically show up at high schools and say "Hey I'm Caleb Campbell, the NFL player, come join the Army!". Not that I particularly care about this, I just find it funny that so many people are pushing so hard to find the sunny side of this story to be about one young man avoiding the war in Iraq, when it could potentially lead to many more becoming obligated in the future.

I don't plan on involving politics or the war in Iraq into any future posts, in case anyone was worried that this thing was going to turn into a soapbox blog. I just wanted to express an opinion about this that wasn't cookie cutter thoughtless drivel that ESPN and other big media networks can be so good at churning out.


And on a finishing note, Jason Kidd looked terrible tonight and I'll bet Mark Cuban hasn't slept in a week and a half.