Thursday, November 29, 2007

Time to take out the trash

The biggest game of the regular season, according to Bill Polian, takes place this Sunday. The Colts have a chance to make things very easy for themselves by sweeping the Jags. It would all but lock up the AFC South title and put the Colts in great position for a bye with four games to play. Pittsburgh, currently the three seed, still has tough games remaining versus New England and Jacksonville.

Here's an article from the Orlando Sentinel focusing on Jacksonville's mindset heading into the big game. David Garrard thinks the Jags can win the division. Also, the speculation has begun that Del Rio's contract will be renegotiated after the season. This is great news. I was seriously afraid for awhile that JDR would get fired prompting the Jags to actually win the division the following season. Instead a guy who hasn't won a four-team division in five attempts gets more money and more years on his deal.

Also check out Whitlock's latest work for FoxSports. He takes a broad look at the Sean Taylor tragedy. I agree with Whitlock less than half the time, but count me among the people who think the IndyStar should do whatever it takes to hire this guy. I do not know how he would fit in the budget, but Kansas City is not exactly a major market either. I have nothing against Bob Kravitz who has been much better over the past year. He's even made it off my official Bill Simmons and other people I can't stand list. I just think Whitlock would sell papers and give us something to talk about.
Deshawn Zombie comments: For Dungy's take on this sad event, check out our buddy Phil B. Wilson's blog. It's a sad world we live in.

4 comments:

Joel said...

Yeah, I find the whole Sean Taylor coverage to be odd; the police keep saying "we think this was random," and EVERYONE else says, "this doesn't look even slightly random."

Speaking of Bill Simmons...I submitted the same question to him a couple times during his "Marathon Chat" yesterday, which of course he never posted. It was the following:

After the 2006 Draft, you made the following statement in your draft recap (paraphrased): 'The biggest mistake of this draft was the Colts not trading up to draft Laurence Maroney, and getting stuck having to reach for Joseph Addai.' Man enough to admit how idiotic a statement that was?

Of course the jury is still a little bit out on Maroney; he can't stay healthy for long enough to prove he's any good. But Kid Joe is CLEARLY the most dominant back from that draft class, even more so than Bush. If that draft were redone today, Bush might still go above Addai because of his marketability, but Joe wouldn't slip out of the top ten. Maroney and Deangelo Williams would probably both drop to the 2nd round.

Anonymous said...

While the Star could certainly use more talented journalists, I'm not sure Whitlock would fit in simply because he has an admitted bias against the Colts for the ludicrous reason that they got rid of Jeff George, his former high school teammate. Even today, he seldom passes up an opportunity to slam them. That might not be the best recipe for an Indy reporter.

Anonymous said...

I really enjoyed--if that's the right word--the Whitlock piece. It's the sort of piece that can really only be written by a black man to be taken seriously. If I, a white woman who has lived her whole life in the middle-class midwest, wrote it, not only would I not be taken seriously, I would probably be given the riot act. I've read similar types of accounts in Barack Obama's book and a random autobiography called Educating Esme (Emse is white, but she describes an incident at an inner-city school where an administrator rails parents for celebrating their kids' graduation from sixth grade as though it's the only educational accomplishment they should expect). It's interesting and important. Unfortunately, though, I think it often falls on deaf ears or fails to fall on the ears it needs to. Thanks for the link.

HeatherRadish said...

The really sad part about Sean Taylor is that, like Darrent Williams, as soon as they take the decal off the helmets, no one will ever mention the circumstances of his death ever again, let alone in a context that urges young men to better themselves off the streets.

Good on Whitlock for pointing out that statistically the shooter is probably black; read a bunch of columns yesterday about the murder epidemic affecting young black men that didn't once point out that the carriers are young black men.

OTOH, Whitlock calls Goatboy Tom Brady "one of the three best QBs of all time," and I'm sure he's not leaving out Marino or Farve...might be a good fit for Indy sometime after 2013 but not before.