Salt on Monday

It is the end of April and along with the inevitable showers and sloppy weather comes the NFL draft.
The Draft has become a huge deal for the NFL and I was planning a big blowout at some dingy sports bar, with wagering – only play money of course – on each pick, mocking the idiot Redskin fans, swilling draft beer, and generally having a grand ol’ time. Unfortunately, fellow contributor Chris Hoff, decided to hold his engagement party on that particular Saturday afternoon.

Now I understand that Chris is a Redskin fan, and the Redskins as a rule, pretty much opt out of the draft each and every year (they do this because they don’t see the benefit of drafting a young, relatively healthy player, at a reasonable cost - compared to the overpriced free agency market - who might develop some attachment to your team and system/coaches as he develops, and then could become a solid player on the field, and a positive influence in the locker room. Oh no no no, not for the Danny Boy Redskins this path of reason and patience. The Redskin plan is the same as selling your house and sleeping in a different hotel room from week to week, then wondering why you never feel settled). But have some compassion for the rest of us Chris, whose teams actually have a chance at making a run in the NFL playoffs.

( Not that any other bloggers here follow teams that have a chance except me and the blessed Dallas Cowboys. Seb is a Lions fan – and that in itself is about as rare as an English speaking Tim Hortons employee in Toronto – a team so screwed up that I wouldn’t be surprised if they pulled out the ol’ flying wing formation in their first offensive series. Hey it worked for Red Grange! And Brad is a member of the perpetually lovable loser Eagles fan club. The last championship victory that city had happened in Rocky II).

Anyhow, I missed the draft for the most part. So after suffering through months of draft prospect profiles – ‘good bubble, stout at the point of attack’ – I had to miss the actual event. Thanks Chris. So instead of making bad decisions in a cheap pub, I was forced to stand around and make small talk, all the while pretending that I didn’t have a waiver offer in for Felix Hernandez. (That is the exact reason, in a nutshell, as to why I haven’t been dominating every fantasy league I have been in the past 18 months. How can you plan or strategize when you have guys who drop a huge young talent like Hernandez just because he got put on the 15 day DL? IN A KEEPER LEAGUE!!)

I missed the draft. And now I have to suffer the months of talk of draft ‘winners’ and ‘losers’. Of course how anyone can predict a draft winner when the players haven’t even said goodbye to their college girlfriends yet is beyond me. Shouldn’t we wait until they have at least found out where the football groupies hang out in the city that drafted them? I really don’t think that is too much to ask. I can’t even go to my favorite team blog – theboysblog.com – for solace, because the conversation there has disintegrated to the point that guys are writing PARAGRAPHS about how the kicker the Cowboys picked in the SIXTH ROUND isn’t as good as the kicker picked soon after. Thanks Chris…



Lets Go Raptors!

Sam and the boys went to Jersey and took a whippin’. When the game got out of hand – seemingly the second they left Toronto... - I was waiting for the Vince Carter ‘this game is done, now I can pretend I like my teammates’ bench joking, and I got it in spades on Sunday. VC was laughing it up with the scrubs in the fourth quarter after waxing the Raps for 27. Let’s face it people, the Raptors are in uncharted waters here. They don’t have anyone with playoff experience in the NBA - and I’m just not counting Rasho Nesterovic, because you can’t count on someone who doesn’t play when the game is on the line – and they don’t have anyone beside Chris Bosh to get some points where the big boys live under the hoop. I hope the Raptors can get a win here on Tuesday, but even if they somehow win on Tuesday, I just can’t see them getting to a game seven seeing as game 6 is in The Garden State.

It’s okay people. They needed this. They weren’t as good as they thought they were and the playoffs are teaching them that lesson. Would I prefer that they learned that lesson after beating the on-again-off-again Vince Carter? Of course I would. Just not happening this year is all.