Clarkie Jr. Must Go!

had to sneak this in despite my sabbatical:

- flyers trade calder for something or other. important quote here is:

Holmgren was at a loss to explain why Calder did not work out for the Flyers, who traded Michal Handzus to Chicago to get him last summer.

"From a positional standpoint, we thought [Calder] was a better fit, he was a little younger and we thought he would be a younger guy who could grow with our group of young guys that we had," Holmgren said.

translation - "we have no idea why he didn't turn into a superstar like we expected. when you trade a hard-working middling kind of player like handzus for an enigmatic but talented middling kind of player like calder and the talented guy doesn't take that as the impetus to achieve the entirety of his unrealized potential, it's quite baffling."

- flyers trade for an old goalie who is no better than the goalies already on the roster. what, john vanbiesbrouck wasn't available in trade?!

it's like clarkie never left. bunch of drunk yahoos.

Andy Reid Taking Leave

philly.com and espn.com are both reporting that big red is taking a leave of absence from the team, more than likely to deal with the mess that his sons got themselves into. i know that this is going to fuel more speculation that he's going to give up his head coaching duties (which i think is a good strategic move anyway), but if he was going to do that i don't think he'd be the type of guy to drag it out -- especially with draft planning well underway. if there was a chance the team needed to find a new HC, andy would do the right thing.

this does open the door for next season, however. i know one of the local columnists mentioned gruden as a possible candidate (and one who is interested in coming back here). what do people think about that? i have mixed feelings about him. i recall being incredibly frustrated with his offense when he was OC.

Value of NFL Players

saw this list of franchise tag values in this len pasquerelli article

Position	2007 franchise charge	Change from 2006
QB	$12.615 million	43.5%
OL	$9.556 million	36.8%
DE	$8.664 million	3.7%
CB	$7.790 million	32.2%
WR	$7.613 million	23.3%
LB	$7.206 million	0.5%
RB	$6.999 million	15%
DT	$6.775 million	19.8%
S	$4.490 million	9.3%
TE	$4.371 million	31.2%
P/K	$2.078 million	-15.8%

if we can assume that a) the nfl is a free market system, b) nfl teams understand what it takes to win, and c) nfl teams make rational decisions, then i think this table is about as good an indicator as to the relative importance of a particular position to winning as there is.

this is in-line with a previous post/discussion we had a few months ago (though i can't seem to find it) and the top 4 positions exactly match the way i would rank them based on my observations.

surprises for me:

- DT is ranked much lower than i expected. this is shocking to me actually.

- WR is ranked slightly higher than i expected.

Lack of Activity

sorry for the lack of activity lately, i'm bombed at work. transitioning a couple of my clients to someone else and taking on some new clients.

here's what is bouncing around in my head:

- superbowl - both superbowl teams play straight up defense. no gimmicks, no blitzing. for me, it reinforces the notion that JJ's scheme is flawed.

- signing day - penn state managed to eek into the top 25 (24) in rivals.com's rankings for their recruiting class, but this is how bad it's gotten for them: a) as big dog mentioned, joe pa is losing the battle in NJ to rutgers. RUTGERS! b) broderick green (rated the 14th best running back in the nation) chose USC over PSU even though USC also signed two guys who not only are the number 1 and 2 RBs in the nation but some also consider the two best players in the nation. meanwhile, PSU's RB stable is bare and green would have had a chance to start right away. gah.

- sixers - this is just awful. this team is just perky enough to get into the playoffs in the awful east. the sixers are blowing their chance at getting either difference making player. i can't stand it. billy king is on TV preaching some nonsense about not tanking because he has to be concerned about teaching the players how to win. hey billy, here's how you win. it's pretty simple -- have the best freaking players.

- phillies - still getting really excited about the team. watched the meet the phils show the other day. haven't done that in years. i'm with ben this year, win or lose i'm along for the ride. give pat some credit here, he's converted an unlikeable team into a likeable one pretty quickly.