Pigskin Spin

Yesterday I posted a tribute video to Barry Sanders, one of my two favorite players to ever play the game, and The Sickest RB EVER. Well to follow that up, I need to post a highlight video of the 2nd personal favorite. This guy had one of the greatest arms in the history of NFL. His release on the ball was dangerous to pressure defenses. He played for my favorite NFL team, and he is the best QB in NFL history to not win a Super Bowl title. Yes, a tribute to Dan “The Man” Marino.

In the spirit of waiting and wanting football to begin again, I wanted to just post a highlight reel of one of my 2 favorite players to ever play this game. I was watching a video over at VikeVision about the transactions this offseason for the Vikings, and I just felt the need to post this. I am tainted by the fact that I was too young to truly enjoy all that this guy offered to the NFL. We may never see another like him, but I’ll hold my breath on Viking’s RB Peterson. So for all that loved what he brought to the game, we say thank you, Barry.

Anyone else tired of reading and hearing about what Jason Taylor wants and doesn’t want? This back and forth story with Taylor is pushing all my buttons as a Miami Dolphins fan. For God’s sake, Taylor just retire. Go to Hollywood and make some movies or something. You don’t know what you want inside the NFL; however, it seems that you know what you want outside of it. At this point, I don’t even care if you go play for New England this year, just get the hell out of Miami, would ya? You think you have earned this right to win a championship and pissing a lot of people of in the process. And the latest news about you and Green Bay is another indicator that you, Taylor, do not plan to play more than a season for any of the 12 teams that you want to be traded to.

I read an article published by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel about how Jason Taylor has told the Packers no, I do not want to play for your team. Taylor even threatens to retire if he is traded to a team that is not on his list of 12 acceptable teams he would like to play for. Though not all 12 teams have been disclosed, those teams that have are undoubtedly around either California or Florida, or in a mass television market. We all get it Jason, you want your championship that you think your entitled to, and you want to continue working on your second career. As an owner/head coach of a team, this would certainly deter me from picking you up to play for my team. I don’t think Jason realizes that he is killing his value as a player. And that fact that Taylor has already stated that he plans on living in Southern California in 2009 tells me that his NFL career is already over in his mind.

Taylor, RETIRE! It isn’t like you helped my Dolphins anyway. Yeah, defensive player of the year in 2006, but what became of that season? We would have sucked with or without you. Go make your movies, get off the field and stop waisting Miami’s time.

Here is the link to article in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

A little fantasy football preview. I have decided that this post is going to focus on the Tight End position. Always seems that these guys seem to get lost in the draft when fantasy managers start focusing on big name RBs and QBs.

I scrolled through last season’s stats for these TEs, and I have put together my top 10 TE for fantasy football season 08. I will give you what NFL.com has rated as there top 10, and then I’ll give you mine w/a little extra opinion. Let’s get this party started.

NFL.com’s top 10 TE for fantasy 2008:

1. Antonio Gates - Chargers
2. Jason Witten - Cowboys
3. Kellen Winslow - Browns
4. Tony Gonzalez - Chiefs
5. Chris Cooley - Redskins
6. Todd Heap - Ravens
7. Dallas Clark - Colts
8. Jeremy Shockey - Giants
9. Vernon Davis - 49ers
10. Tony Scheffler - Broncos

When I put my list together, I hadn’t yet looked at NFL.com’s rating yet. This is my complete honest opinion of the top producers this coming year.

1. Antonio Gates - Chargers / Gates hasn’t had less than 9 TD’s in a season since 2003. Last season, he had 984 yrds receiving & 9 TD.
2. Jason Witten - Cowboys / Not much to say except he’s a focal point in a very high-powered offense. Last season, Witten put together 1145 yrds receiving & 7 TD.
3. Kellen Winslow - Browns / Another guy benefiting from a very surprising high-powered offense last year. As long as Derek Anderson plays to the same caliber as the 07 season, he’ll be putting up some huge numbers this year. Last season, Winslow had 1106 yrds receiving & 5 TD.
4. Dallas Clark - Colts / What a career year last year; best perfromance in all 5 years as a pro. Clark benefited from Marvin Harrison going down. I don’t expect these numbers this year if Harrison is good to go. Last season, Clark shocked us with 616 yrds receiving & 11 TD.
5. Tony Gonzalez - Chiefs / Excellent Pro-bowl player. Tony will get his yards, but he is going to suffer from an offense that will struggle to make it to the red zone this season. Last year, Tony put together 1172 receiving yrds & 5 TD.
6. Chris Cooley - Redskins / Chris has had more than 725 yrds receiving each season since 2005. Not sure of the QB situation in Washington, it’s hard to place Chris any higher on this list. He might suffer from a QB fall out. Last season, Chris had 786 yrds receiving and 8 TD.
7. Jeremy Shockey - Giants / Let’s face, this guy is good. He did get hurt last season, and he was putting together good yardage, but in fantasy, we need to see the TD my friend. For this reason, his value has dropped this year, along with all the controversy going on in NY right now. Now if he ends up in a city like New Orleans, he will increase his fantasy value big time. Last year, before he was hurt, Shockey played 14 games with 619 yrds receiving and 3TD.
8. Heath Miller - Steelers / I’m really surprised he didn’t make NFL.com’s top 10. Heath is going into his 4th season in the NFL and he as improved every year. With the Steelers struggling at the Offensive Line, Big Ben is going to continue to look to dump the pass off to Miller. His numbers should go up again this year. Last season, Heath had 566 yrds and 7TD. (Better value than Shockey actually).
9. Tony Scheffler - Broncos / This guy should have a HUGE season this year. Tony only played in 12 games last season, and only started 7 of those. For that type of playing time, he had ProBowl numbers. Last season, Tony had 549 yrds and 5 TD.
10. Donald Lee - Packers / This past season was his 5th and his best yet. I understand that Favre is gone, but with an inexperienced Aaron Rogers coming to the helm, any pressure may cause Rogers to look more in Lee’s direction. Last season, Lee put up 575 yrds receiving and 6 TD.

My choices for up and comers, but not yet in the top 10:

• Zach Miller - Raiders / Last year as a rookie, Miller set the Oakland franchise record in receptions for a TE. Not bad for a rookie playing for a team that has been around as long as Oakland.
• Vernon Davis - 49ers / Yes, Vernon had good numbers last year, but the 49ers are still struggling as and offense and there will not be any improvement this season. If Vernon was playing for just about any other team, he would be sitting in my top 10 next year.
• Owen Daniels - Texans / Not a bad year at all last year, 768 yrds & 3 TD. The fantasy owners need more TD’s my man. I understand starting QB Matt Schaub was injured last season, so maybe this year will help this guy pull some better TD numbers.

In the tradition of Father’s Day, what else is there to think about except football and the upcoming 2008 NFL season? I decided to stroll around a few of the football sites around the web while I watch Tiger Woods work his way to the 18th green. When I landed on the NFL.com website, a video ranking the top 10 comebacks in football history caught my attention.

This got me thinking, would my Miami Dolphins make the cut for this top 10. They did, twice. Disappointedly they made it towards the top of the list cause they let the Jets whoop that ass. These past 10 years, which has been the majority of my NFL following, have been unbearable for Dolphin fans. Well, at least we’ve always had it better than the Detroit following.

Anyway, I took a little look see at the video and made me want to blog about it. I posted it at the bottom of this post. So my thought was, who doesn’t truly enjoy a great comeback? One of my favorites was watching the Bears comeback from a 20-0 deficit to the Arizona Cardinals WITHOUT even scoring on the offensive side of the ball. Ridiculous.

Brings a smile to my face:

“You wanna crown ‘em? Go ahead crown their ass! They’re who we thought they were! We let’em of the hook!”

As I sit here laughing at myself, I ask you, what team do you think had the greatest comeback ever? Do you agree with NFL Total Access? Just watch the video of the Top 10 Comebacks and give up a little feed back, won’t ya?

greg jennings, wide receiver for the green bay packers, talks to adam and solomon on sirius nfl radio today.

the fellas began by asking greg about the change at quarterback between favre and rogers at a rapport perspective. greg states that brett built his rapport with the receiver because of his personal leadership and skills on the field. with aaron, he has had to build his rapport off the field, and he feels that they are going to be just fine.

greg said that he made a point to get into the huddle with rogers in the past because aaron felt that he could never get him in the huddle being the number 2 offense in practice. greg knew that aaron was the future qb for this team and wanted to build a relationship with rogers.

jennings was asked about his biggest on-field work the coming season. greg said that it is his route technique and disipline, along side the studying of his opponents tendencies are the biggest things to work on on the field.

the subject of improvement with concern to aaron rogers was then discussed. greg stated that aaron’s biggest improvement is his comradery with the players. aaron would invite the players to his home on wednesday nights so they could build a relationship with him off the field. on the field, aaron’s improvement came in the department of how aggressive he is with guys after the play was executed properly or not; saying that aaron knows the offense front and back.

this sounds like jennings is making a case for green bay still being the cream of the crop in their division this season. only team that is going to come close to touching them in the division will be the vikings. the packers still appear to have the complete package as a whole team viewpoint. green bay is going to hit one big road block in the division this season, and that is stopping the huge run game of the vikings.

as if the ravens really need any additional help at playing horrible football. for god’s sake, weren’t they the ones that allowed my ugly 1 and 15 dolphins to obtain that single victory?

if you’ve been out of the loop, the baltimore raven’s suffered a great loss yesterday with the retirement of jonathan ogden. as a 12 year nfl veteran, ogden put together 11 pro bowl seasons along with 1 super bowl ring. he talked with the guys on nfl sirius radio yesterday, and here is what he had to say in terms of his career:

ogden stated that he always took it game by game, year by year. he never thought that he would reach the level that he did. adding, that is career was similar to a long rollercoaster road; a really fun rollercoaster with the highs and the lows.

ogden added that he played pretty much all of last year hurt. he knows he is at the level where he cannot put out the level of playing the he needs. it is time for him to accept the fact that he can’t play at the level the team needs out on the field.

ogden also stated that it was huge for him to play for one team his entire career. it means something. the relationship between him and the ravens organization has been strong, like a family relationship. the never put any pressure on him, not this year or last, adding that is a testament to the organization.

when asked if he still would have retired had brian billick not been fired, ogden says he’s sure he would have stilled made the same descion. the final deciding factor is that he couldn’t give the team what they needed. ogden added that if i’m going to play football, i’m going to play football. i’m not going to go out there and just collect a paycheck.

nfl.com add this video interview with ogden: