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With a royal wedding and deadly tornados dominating headlines yesterday, the NFL draft took place in New York without much fanfare, and even included notable boos for Commissioner Roger Goodell from fans bitter about the labor battle.
As expected, Auburn quarterback and Heisman Trophy winner Cam Newton was the first pick, and went straight to the worst team in the league — the Carolina Panthers. He vowed to make an impact immediately.
“I’m ready to change this whole organization around, to go from worst to first,” he said. “Just being a Panther is the most special part about this.”
Newton led Auburn to an undefeated season and its first national championship since 1957.
Before he took the traditional walk across the stage to shake the commissioner’s hand, Goodell had been hearing the displeasure of fans worried that labor strife might interfere with the upcoming season.
Goodell was booed as he prepared to conduct a moment of silence for victims of the devastating storms that ripped through the South. He responded to their chants of “We want football!” by saying, “I hear you. So do I.”
The boos continued every time he stepped on stage for the early part of the first round, though they died down as the night went along. By the end, there was hardly a smattering of jeers, reports the AP.
With the second pick, Denver took Texas A&M linebacker Von Miller, a plaintiff in the antitrust lawsuit filed by the players to block the lockout imposed by the owners.
“I’ve never had anything against Roger Goodell,” Miller said. “I just want to make sure football continues to get played. When I walked across the stage, I was meeting the commissioner. That was it.”
Thanks to a judge’s ruling in the lawsuit Miller is involved in, the league’s first work stoppage since 1987 temporarily ends today. The 32 teams will resume business in compliance with U.S. District Judge Susan Richard Nelson’s order to lift the lockout.
Then again, the lockout could be back in place if the NFL wins an appeal. If that happens, Newton, Miller and the rest of Thursday night’s draft picks would be thrown back into labor limbo.
With the third pick, Buffalo selected Alabama nose tackle Marcell Dareus. Cincinnati, perhaps calling the bluff of quarterback Carson Palmer, who is demanding a trade, instead took the top receiver in this crop, A.J. Green of Georgia. Arizona, also in need of a quarterback, selected the top cornerback available, Patrick Peterson of LSU.
San Francisco chose defensive end Aldon Smith of Missouri to bolster a weak pass rush, then the second quarterback was selected: Washington’s Jake Locker, who many thought had played himself out of the first round with an inconsistent senior season, to Tennessee.
That began a small run on passers. After Dallas went for offensive tackle Tyron Smith of Southern California with the ninth pick, Jacksonville saw a chance to get its future quarterback. The Jaguars moved up six slots for Missouri’s Blaine Gabbert, dealing their first-round pick and a second-rounder to Washington.
Houston bolstered its weak defense with Wisconsin end J.J. Watt at No. 11 before yet another QB was chosen: Florida State’s Christian Ponder went to Minnesota in what was probably the most surprising pick of the first round.
Auburn DT Nick Fairley, once projected as a top-three selection, was chosen 13th by the Lions. Detroit took defensive tackle in Ndamukong Suh in the first round last year and he became the defensive rookie of the year.
St. Louis, undeterred by Robert Quinn’s lost season — the linebacker-end was suspended from North Carolina for his role in an agents scandal — took him at No. 14.
Mike Pouncey, whose twin brother, Maurkice, was a sensational rookie center for Pittsburgh last year, was chosen by Miami to play the same position.
After moving down to No. 16, Washington took Purdue linebacker Ryan Kerrigan. Cleveland traded again, from No. 27 to 21st for Baylor DT Phil Taylor, with Kansas City sliding to 27th.
New England addressed concerns about protecting Tom Brady by taking Colorado tackle Nate Solder, and archrival Indianapolis safeguarded Peyton Manning by selecting Boston College tackle Anthony Castonzo.
Former firefighter and hockey player Danny Watkins went to Philadelphia. The Canadian guard from Baylor apologized to Giants fans in the audience who booed him for going to the rival Eagles. Watkins was told to get used to such treatment in New York.
Baltimore passed after using all 10 minutes at No. 26 and Kansas City, in the next slot acquired through Atlanta and Cleveland, swooped in. The Chiefs got Pitt wide receiver Jonathan Baldwin while the Ravens still pondered their pick. They went with Colorado cornerback Jimmy Smith at No. 27.
Mark Ingram, the 2009 Heisman Trophy winner, went 28th overall to New Orleans, which traded with New England to get the spot. The Saints surrendered a 2012 first-rounder for the Alabama running back, giving them two Heisman winners in their backfield — sort of. Reggie Bush won the award in 2005, but he relinquished it after an NCAA probe found he accepted improper gifts while playing at Southern California.
Super Bowl champion Green Bay concluded the 3 1/2-hour first round by taking Mississippi State tackle Derek Sherrod.
The NBA Playoffs started this past week, and I have to tell you, the excitment doesn’t match March Madness by any stretch of the imagination. At least, not yet. But the more troubling aspects of the NBA playoffs are the manifestations of league president, David Sterns, attempt to “manage” the NBA brand, in particularly the temperament of the game. Now, to basketball purists, it seemed like a little meddling at first as Stern put in place “technical foul” limits on players who might complain too much.
You know, ruining the all too precious “fan experience” (more on this in a minute). Tinkering at the edges of game for tinkering sake. But this year, we witnessed a player bias unlike we haven’t seen in prior years. Particularly against Orlando Center (and Defensive Player of the Year for the third year in a row), Dwight Howard, who gets hammered every night, can barely get a call, and when he complains about it…gets hammered with a technical foul. That same bias works in Kobe Bryant’s favor. Now I’m a Lakers fan, but Kobe Bryant is the league’s biggest whiner and should have twice the technical fouls as Howard, if the refs were being consistent. The real stars of the game are the young, “edgy” stars that have put the swag back in the game, but can’t say nothing for fear of costing their team a game because ref induced technical foul.
The “star treatment” has become a figment of one’s imagination, to a large degree as a result of the referees being empowered by Stern to “manage the game.” I have a problem with this that I will expound upon momentarily, but I will just say that some of the referees have gotten so caught up in managing the game, they’ve forgotten how to referee the game. Three games in the first or second game of three different first round series were adversely impacted by referee calls. In the final minutes of Game One of the Portland-Dallas series, Game Two of the Chicago-Indiana series and most notably, the last minute of Game One of the Boston-New York, a questionable referee changed the momentum of the game. The call against Carmelo Anthony in the final half minute of the Celtics-Knicks game damn near made me throw a shoe through a restaurant flatscreen. There was a highly questionable foul, it took the ball from the Knicks and the Celtics won the game in a very anti-climatic ending. Not only should the Knicks fans feel robbed. Every fan of the game who was watching should feel robbed too. Let the players PLAY, Man. It is part of what is making the NBA a joke to hard core fans.
Let’s go back to this issue of managing the game, because it has really has its roots in the vestiges of racial (social) control of managing labor who question authority. I know, you think I see race in everything. Nope. Not everything. Just most things, because in a racial society there are many vestiges racial behavior, and if we want to manage “behavior,” let’s call both sides of it. Not just one side. I really started thinking about this last week around the league’s (Stern’s) reaction to Kobe Bryant’s “f*ckin’ fa***t” comments. Now, I do not condone anyone making disparaging comments about a race of people, a group of people, or a single person out in our society. But in sports, where the heat of the moment meets the competitive desire to win, controlled emotional outbursts and psychological banter (getting inside someone’s head) are all a part of the game, anyone who’s ever played the game knows damn near anything can be and will be said in a game. It’s not the same and we all know it’s not the same. It’s not like Kobe was walking down the street and saw a same sex couple and blurted out his “ff” comment like some homophobes have been known to do. While the comment can’t be totally defended, neither can anything else that’s said in the heat of passion, whether the engagement is sport, war or sex. What is said is said, then forgotten after cooler heads prevail.
Now here’s the racial edge to this, and maybe even the double standard…the NBA is a 90% African American league, with players chasing “street cred” like its cocaine. You can’t even tell where the uniforms end and the tatoos begin, and of course, most players have a crew and a hip hop “theme song.” And NBA markets and partners with the rap artists, the shoe companies, the clothiers and “elements” where you know damn well, the N-word has been said more than once. Probably at a game. On the floor and in the stands. But what if Kobe would have called the ref “A Ni**a,” would the fine been $100,000, or would there have even been a fine? Of course Stern would say there would’ve but I doubt it. How do you “manage” the emotion of sport? An ejection, okay…a fine. Really? If the NBA is so image conscious, why doesn’t it ban tattoos? It’s hypocritical.
Stern has been accused of running a plantation mentality over the years, and is trying to keep the fan base, mostly white (at least at the games) appeased, when that same behavior appeasement doesn’t take place, with the same veracity, in other sports. We spare a child verbal assault at an NBA game, when he can go the next night and see all the verbal assaults, violence and bloodshed they want at an NHL game. Please? We haven’t seen so many behavior changes the NCAA re-wrote the rule book for the University of Miami in 1990s. That was a black thang too. And pro football followed, but not to the extent of the NBA.
by Anthony Asadullah Samad
On a Chicago sports radio show, Duke University coach Mike Krzyzewski (pronounced “Sha-shef-ski”) has come out swinging at the critical remarks made by Jalen Rose about the school in an ESPN documentary. Krzyzewski says the comments were “very insulting to everyone here at Duke.”
In his ESPN Films documentary, “The Fab Five,” Rose said African American basketball players recruited by Duke in the early 90s were “Uncle Toms.”
In the documentary that aired March 13, Rose – an ESPN analyst and executive producer of the film – said:
“I hated Duke and I hated everything Duke stood for. Schools like Duke didn’t recruit players like me. I felt like they only recruited black players that were Uncle Toms.”
“Obviously, that was a poor choice of words and very insulting to everyone here at Duke but especially, not just our African-American players, but any African-American students,” Krzyzewski said on “The Waddle & Silvy Show” on ESPN 1000 in Chicago Tuesday. “When you judge within a race, you start judging, like you put categories as to who you are. I think that’s just the wrong thing to do.”
Krzyzewski also revealed that one of the Fab Five could have ended up at Duke.
“We were very successful against them and, to be quite frank with you, we recruited Chris Webber,” he said. “I didn’t recruit Jalen Rose because we had Grant Hill and I’m happy with that. We didn’t look at the other, Juwan Howard [because] we knew he wasn’t going to come to Duke. The other two kids we didn’t think were the caliber that could play as well as Thomas Hill and Brian Davis and Billy McCaffery. They’re good kids. They were good kids.”
Newly hired Southern California athletic director Pat Haden says Reggie Bush apologized to him and expressed regret in a phone call last week about the NCAA’s sanctions that resulted from findings that he received improper benefits while playing for USC.
“He’s really contrite,” Haden told USA Today of Bush. “He knows he made a series of mistakes. It wasn’t just one mistake. It was a series of mistakes.”
Bush, a running back for the New Orleans Saints, has not been stripped of the Heisman Trophy he won in 2005, though USC has returned Bush’s Heisman given to the school. Two trophies are awarded for each recipient.
“He told me, ‘If I could turn the clock back, I would. If I could give the Heisman Trophy back, I would,’ ” Haden told the newspaper.
In Louisiana for the start of the Saints’ training camp, Bush said he was focusing on football but admitted he is bothered by the way the university has distanced itself from him.
“I think I’d be lying if I said it didn’t,” Bush has said publicly. “Obviously, it does, but at the end of the day it is what it is. All I can really do now is focus on the New Orleans Saints and just try to move on. It bothers me and it sucks. The whole situation is terrible and nobody feels worse about it than I do.
“But, at the same time, I can’t dwell on the negatives because I do have a job to do and I have a whole organization and a city riding on my back, not necessarily my back, but the team’s back.”
Haden said Bush was barred from visiting the Los Angeles school.
“I wish I could ask Reggie to come talk to our football team. I can’t,” said Haden, who replaced ousted AD Mike Garrett on Aug. 3. “He’s not allowed on the campus. But I think he would tell them what a big mistake he made and how sorry he is.”
Bush said he hopes his relationship with USC doesn’t remain fractured forever.
“I hope someday at some point it can be repaired,” Bush said when training camp started. “We’ll see what happens. That’s all I can do.”
Charles Barkley never ceases to surprise the world of sports with his over the top comments and crazy, er, interesting ideas. On Monday, the ex-NBA player, and now TNT basketball analyst, expressed disgust with the league players who are really getting caught up with this whole sexual orientation issue.
He suggested that it’s not about what a man does in the bedroom. It’s about how they play. He even said he’s sure he played with gay teammates in the past.
“I didn’t think it … they were gay, he said on Monday about the Phoenix Suns President Rick Welts coming out.
In fact, he can recall possibly playing on three teams with gay players. But it didn’t bother him none. It was about winning and playing well together. And that whole locker room sacredness was not really an issue.
“A guy is never going to put himself in that situation in a professional locker room,” Barkley said. “It never crossed my mind, and I never felt any different about the guy.”
He then emphasized the importance to bring quality back to the game and get rid of sorry players.
“I really like ESPN,” Barkley added. “They do a great job. But like once every two or three months, they bring all these people on there, and they tell me how me and my team are going to respond to a gay guy. First of all, every player has played with gay guys. It bothers me when I hear these reporters and jocks get on TV and say: ‘Oh, no guy can come out in a team sport. These guys would go crazy.’ First of all, quit telling me what I think. I’d rather have a gay guy who can play than a straight guy who can’t play.”
The issue of homophobia is not only a problem, it’s a growing issue amidst the sports world especially with the gay rights movement flourishing at it greatest today.