If I ran an NFL franchise, I'd pretty much only draft quarterbacks

Before the NFL draft started I made it abundantly clear that it is not something that interests me.  When the Patriots took Eastern Illiniois quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo in the second round yesterday, here was my reaction:

Admittedly I'm not a draft guy http://t.co/geScjqtmJJ But how will Janeane Garofalo help the Patriots?
— Mark Vandeusen (@LucidSportsFan) May 10, 2014

Not Janeane Garofalo...

But in all honesty, I love that pick.  And not because I like the guy (I know nothing about him), but because I think drafting QB's is always a good idea.  If I was in charge of an NFL team, unless I had a superstar quarterback in his prime (which Tom Brady is definitely past) I think I'd take several QB's every year.

Last season just about every key defensive player on New England got hurt, and so did half of their offense.  But guess what, Brady didn't, and the Pats still got to the conference championship game.

The Broncos traded for Peyton Manning, and instantly became the class of the AFC.

Greatness at quarterback is a million times more valuable than any other position.  Even if you drafted a star running back, wide receiver, safety and linebacker, it still wouldn't come close to what it could do for your team if you found the next Brady or Manning.  Isn't the best way to ensure you get that guy to draft as many QB's as possible year after year?  

Although there was that season that Brady got hurt and the Matt Cassel Patriots went 11-5.  Hmm, maybe teams should use all their picks on finding the next Bill Belichick...

Follow @LucidSportsFan

Does anybody think the DirecTV "no wires" marionette people commercials are actually funny?

I keep seeing these ads over and over again, and I just want them to go away.  A lot of adjectives come to mind.  Weird.  Creepy.  Disturbing.  But funny?  No.

And here's what I don't get.  The guy is married to a freak puppet lady (commercial #1), and the two of them spawned some mutant puppet boy kid (commercial #2).  In the first ad the guy makes a point not to say to his buddy that wires are ugly, because he's worried his wife will hear.  But in the second ad the monster child says "I heard you tell mom that wires are ugly."  That just makes no sense.  Come on DirecTV, if you're going to force feed me with these bizarre commercials, at least have them be consistent with each other...

UPDATE: I've come across a similar/like-minded blog written by someone with a lot more time to delve into this subject...

50 Questions About The Marionette Family In Those Weird DirecTV Commercials


Follow @LucidSportsFan

The best part about NFL draft day? We finally get to stop hearing everybody's guesses about it.

Today is the NFL draft.  I don't understand why people love it so much, and all the hype it generates.  It's a crap shoot, plain and simple (here's my first rant on the subject from 2011).

How can anybody really compare an offensive linebacker from Buffalo with a wide receiver from Clemson?  It's impossible to know now who will be the better pro.  I have no clue whatsoever, and neither do people who've done 1000 times more research than me.

Yet somehow as the draft approaches it's the dominant sports news story every day, all day.  Mock drafts are all anybody wants to talk about.  Paid experts work like crazy on their latest prognostications, and the media discusses them as if they have actually value.

But they don't.  I don't care who it is telling you how it's going to be, it's all just a guess.  Via awfulannouncing.com, here's a look at how close (or not) some of last year's first round mock drafts came to reality:

Mike Mayock, NFL Network: 27/32 players selected, 8 slotted correctly.
Todd McShay, ESPN: 27/32 players selected, 4 slotted correctly.
Mel Kiper, ESPN: 26/32 players selected, 6 slotted correctly.
Peter Schrager, Fox Sports: 26/32 players selected, 1 slotted correctly.
Mike Florio, PFT: 25/32 players selected, 6 slotted correctly.
Doug Farrar, Yahoo: 25/32 players selected, 1 slotted correctly.
Gil Brandt, NFL.com: 24/32 players selected, 1 slotted correctly.
Peter King, NFL.com: 24/32 players selected, 1 slotted correctly.
Matt Miller, Bleacher Report: 24/32 players selected, 1 slotted correctly.
Pete Prisco, CBS: 23/32 players selected, 2 slotted correctly.

The best guy got 25% right, and many "experts" accurately picked just 1 of 32 selections.  As inexact a science as it is, why do we care to listen to it?  Especially 24/7 for a week straight...

Follow @LucidSportsFan

Andrew Bynum should be next on Adam Silver's "banned from the NBA for life" list

The Indiana Pacers announced today that Andrew Bynum is done for the year, and will not be with the team for the remainder of the playoffs.  Bynum's "sore knees" limited him to just two games and 36 minutes of action with Indiana.  His $1 million contract will end up paying him just under $28,000 per minute.  Back when the Pacers signed Bynum on February 1st I wrote a blog entitled "It's infuriating that yet another NBA team is going to pay Andrew Bynum to play basketball."  It included the following quote:

"The Pacers are suckers. Only bad things can come from this. When you have the best record in the NBA, why on earth would you add a potential cancer to your team? There's speculation that Indiana may have signed Bynum just to keep him from going to Miami, who doesn't have much in the way of centers to compete with Pacers All-Star Roy Hibbert in an all but guaranteed Eastern Conference Finals series this spring. If that's the case, Indy shouldn't even allow Bynum to show up; just tell him to go home and forget about playing basketball. He'd probably be much happier that way anyway. 

As his last duty as NBA commissioner David Stern (who retired today, exactly 30 years after getting the job) should have forced Bynum to call it quits as well."

Well, Indiana has finally realized making Bynum go away is the best move.  Unfortunately the Pacers are three months too late on this, and he may have already ruined them.  Now that new league commissioner Adam Silver has gotten his feet wet at banning people for life, he should set his sights on Bynum next.

UPDATE:

Roy Hibbert's 28 points tonight is the most he's scored since getting 26 on Jan. 30, the last game before the Pacers signed Andrew Bynum.
— Mark Vandeusen (@LucidSportsFan) May 8, 2014

Follow @LucidSportsFan

What if the OKC Thunder still had Jeff Green and James Harden?

Substitute Ibaka for Nick Collison...

Jeff Green had his ups and downs with the Celtics this past year, more often than not underachieving in his role as go-to-guy/ primary scorer.  Instead of being Boston's #1 option, imagine if he was #5 in Oklahoma City?

The Thunder got smashed at home last night by the Clippers in Game 1 of the second round.  This morning the announcement came that Kevin Durant won the league MVP.  His former teammate James Harden finished 5th.  Now let's go back in time and undo the Kendrick Perkins for Green and Kevin Martin for Harden trades (I realize the salary cap likely would have prevented Oklahoma City from keeping everybody.  But hey, we're already using a time machine, so who cares?).

OKC could field a lineup of Russell Westbrook, Harden, Green, Durant and Serge Ibaka.  Yes, they would be slightly undersized with Ibaka at center and Durant at power forward, but man could they run.  The whole game would be a 48-minute fast break.  Dunks everywhere.   And all five of them can hit threes.

Sure they might lose in crunch time in the playoffs, but how fun would it be to watch them score 130 points per game?

Follow @LucidSportsFan

The worst bachelorette party ever

A little ways back some buddies and I went out to a sports bar on Saturday night to drink some beers and watch a game.  After we'd been there for a bit a bachelorette party strolled in and took the table beside us (I apologize for the poor quality of the photo, but it's not that easy to take a pic in a dark bar of the people next to you without them noticing).

This particular place seemed like a very unusual location for a bachelorette party, especially considering none of the women were at all interested in anything on the TVs.  But what made it even more weird was that none of them were the least bit interested in each other.

I honestly think this bride had eight friends from eight different circles who all hated each other.  They sat there drinking their beers, not talking to each other (or anyone else in the bar), and all staring at their cell phones.  It was so depressing we had to leave.


Follow @LucidSportsFan

Paul Pierce and Star Wars Inspired Awesome(?) Old Song of the Week

What do you think the odds would have been in Vegas on betting "Paul Pierce Game 7 walk-off block" as the way for the Nets/Raptors series to end?



In an effort to incorporate Pierce's unusual late game heroics into my "Awesome Old Song of the Week" feature, I looked up the Billboard #1 single when he was born in October of 1977.  It just so happens that it was a disco version of the Star Wars theme song, entitled "Star Wars Theme/Cantina Band" by a group called Meco.

The funny thing about this is that today is considered "Star Wars Day" by fans of the genre, because "May the fourth" sounds like "may the force (be with you)."

Weird.




Follow @LucidSportsFan