Red Right 88

In Cleveland, hope dies last

Archive for the month “March, 2011”

10 Mar 2011

Golden Flashes drawing NFL interest

Nine NFL teams, including the Browns, Ravens and Steelers, were represented at Kent State’s pro day this week.

Not a big surprise as the Flashes had 10 players in the NFL last season, including former Pro Bowlers Antonio Gates and Joshua Cribbs and 2008 defensive player of the year James Harrison.

Ten players and no NCAA violations. Maybe a certain school to the south should take notes.

Several eyes were on defensive end Monte’ Simmons, who finished his Kent State career with 21.5 sacks and 38.5 tackles for losses.

”He looks the part; he’s a specimen,” Raymond Jackson, Pittsburgh’s director of player development, told The Beacon Journal. ”He reminds me so much of Courtney Brown. Size-wise, he’s a rare specimen. If you go off of looks, he’s a day-one guy. The film doesn’t lie. If he can play he’s going to be on somebody’s roster.”

”I still feel like I had more in me to show,” said Simmons. ”I have another pro day on March 15, just to get myself seen more.”

Watch, the Steelers or Ravens will probably take a chance on him and Simmons will torment the Browns for the next 10 years.

Scouts were also looking at safety Brian Lainhart, who had 17 interceptions and 344 tackles as a four-year starter, and middle linebacker Cobrani Mixon.

***

According to Paul Hoynes at The Plain Dealer, Nick Johnson is expected to arrive this week at spring training for the Indians.

The oft-injured Johnson is recovering from wrist surgery and is still a few weeks away from being able to swing a bat. The minor-league deal he signed with the Indians has a July 1 out clause. If he isn’t in the big leagues by then, he can become a free agent.

If the Indians bring him to the big leagues, he’ll make $750,000. They can exercise a club option for 2012 worth $2.75 million. He can earn another $1.75 million in plate appearances.

Please don’t hurry back, Nick. No seriously, there’s no rush.

***

Every once in a while we feel a little guilty that we are not more adventurous. But then we read stories like this and realize that’s not such a bad thing:

A Weipa (Australia) fisherman desperately held on to a tree and screamed for help from his mates as a monster croc bit into his legs and tried to pull him under the water.

Rangers will converge on Weipa today to try to catch the aggressive croc that attacked Rio Tinto mine worker Todd Bairstow, 28, as he was fishing on the banks of Trunding Creek yesterday.

Mr Bairstow was fishing in the creek near Albatross Bay Resort, about 4.10pm, when the crocodile lunged at him and tore off his finger.

The crocodile lunged again, grabbed his legs and tried to pull him into the water.

A Queensland Police spokesman said while the man suffered extensive lacerations and dislocated bones, his injuries were not life-threatening.

Yeah, maybe hanging out on the couch isn’t such a bad idea after all. (h/t to Deadspin)

***

Good news as Browns running back Montario Hardesty’s recovery from a knee injury that cost him his rookie season is progressing nicely.

“Rehab is going well,” Hardesty said on the team’s website. “I think I have a little bit of work still left to get myself there. I wouldn’t say I’m well ahead of schedule, but it’s coming along great. I just have a little bit of a ways to go before I’m back to 100 percent.”

If Hardesty can give the Browns anything this season it will be much appreciated, especially by Peyton Hillis, who wore down by the end of the last. (h/t to Waiting for Next Year)

***

Not surprisingly, Zydrunas Ilguaskas is planning to retire after this season.

“I think I’ve had enough of this game,” Ilguaskas told alietuvis.com. “I’ve played enough. Sitting on the bench doing nothing is not what I want to do. The long trips and the intensive schedule have taken its toll – I’m not a 20-year-old anymore and my body is telling me that it would be the right time to retire from NBA after this season. I have given everything I could to basketball and now I’d like to spend more time with my family.”

It can’t be fun for Z to be riding the bench for a Heat team that is not as good as the Cavs teams Z played on the past two years.

***

Finally, this from The New York Times gave us a good chuckle.

Turns out Jim Tressel had to cancel a book signing appearance the other night to try and explain the web of lies he’s weaving at Ohio State.

Tressel was promoting his book, Life Promises for Success: Promises From God on Achieving Your Best.

It’s been a while since we were regulars in church, but we did go to a parochial school through eighth grade and we’re pretty sure lying to your bosses wasn’t one of those life promises.

Posted in bad ideas, Cleveland Browns, Cleveland Indians, culture of lies, Kent State, Ohio State | Leave a comment
10 Mar 2011

Honoring a team that does it the right way

After yesterday’s news about the culture of lies that surrounds Jim Tressel and the Ohio State football program, we need to take a moment to recognize a coach and an athletic program that truly does things the right way.

Congratulations are in order for Kent State basketball coach Geno Ford, who was named the Mid-American Conference’s Coach of the Year, and Justin Greene, the Flashes’ junior center, who was named Player of the Year in the MAC.

Ford took a team with only three returning players and repeated as MAC regular season champions, the first conference team to pull off the feat since Ball State in 1988-89. And he did it without being confused about doing what is right versus doing what is easy.

Seven times since 1999, KSU has had the MAC Coach of the Year – going to four different men.

Kent State has had 11 seasons of at least 20 victories in the last 12 years, five NCAA and five NIT appearances. They have had four coaches, and the worst record since 1999 was 19-15 in 2008-09, Ford’s first season.

And they’ve done it all without cutting corners or lying to their bosses.

Greene averaged 15.6 ppg and delivered 10 double doubles, including the last three games of the season.

The Flashes open conference tournament play Thursday night against Buffalo at the Q.

The Bulls are going to be a tough out, as the two teams have split their two regular-season games for the past three seasons.

But we’re confident the Flashes are going to get it done the right way. The Kent State way.

***

Remember Subbuteo? Sure you do.

EPL Talk reports there there is a documentary about the legendary table soccer game in the works and scheduled for release this year.

Definitely going in the Netflix queue.

***

Lonnie Chisenhall keeps doing his part to make it tough on Indians manager Manny Acta during spring training.

If he keeps it up, it will be interesting to see what the Indians will do. Because of their silly signing of Orlando Cabrera to play second base, the Indians are in a situation where they are trying force Jason Donald, a natural short stop to play third base, blocking Chisenhall.

Why the Indians don’t just go with an infield of Chisenhall at third, Donald and short and Asdrubal Cabrera at second is baffling.

***

Finally, good news from Terry Pluto, who reports that Joe Tait is hoping to be back calling the Cavs game on March 21.

Posted in Cleveland Cavaliers, Cleveland Indians, culture of lies, Geno Ford, Kent State, Ohio State, Subbuteo | Leave a comment
08 Mar 2011

What Ohio State Really Lost Today

Do not do an immoral thing for moral reasons. – Thomas Hardy

It turns out that, despite the daylong cries of Ohio State apologists, that the Yahoo! Sports investigation alleging that Ohio State coach Jim Tressel knew players were selling memorabilia more than eight months before the school claims it knew of the shenanigans is true.

Tressel has been suspended two games and fined $250,000 for violating NCAA rules. He will also have to attend compliance seminar and make a public apology.

Oh no, not a public apology!

During the press conference to announce the suspension, Tressel tried to deflect what he did by going off on a rambling tangent about … something. A federal drug-trafficking case? Murdered players? We’re still not sure.

Tresell, the school and OSU toadies can spin it any way they want (there’s no conspiracy against Ohio State people), but Tressel knew the players were up to shenanigans, didn’t think anyone would find out, and got caught in a lie.

He should have just owned his mistake instead of embarrassing himself and the school.

It can be argued, with some merit, that what Tressel did is small potatoes compared to all the shenanigans run on a daily basis in big-time college athletics (see Cam Newton & Auburn or Reggie Bush & USC).

But that misses the point.

Ohio State and Tressel have presented themselves as being better than other schools, never more so than when they made a sham of the initial violation by not suspending the players involved for the Sugar Bowl. On that day, Tressel confused doing what’s easy with doing what’s right. That seems to be a common theme with him.

That came on the heels of school president E. Gordon Gee making a fool of himself by acting superior to schools like TCU and Boise State, saying the Buckeyes don’t play “the Little Sisters of the Poor” but rather “very fine schools.”

No offense to the University of Akron, but the Zips aren’t exactly a football powerhouse and they are on the Buckeyes schedule next year. But hey, let’s not let facts get in the way here.

Ohio State can’t beat the top teams in the nation on the field – Florida, LSU, Texas and USC all have proven that – and now they can’t lay claim to beating those schools off the field either.

That’s what the Buckeyes have truly lost in all this – they can no longer take the moral high ground. They are just another team doing what they have to do to win games.

And the thing is, there’s nothing wrong with that.

We realized long ago that college athletics is a business. Some still struggle with that, but it’s true. The Norman Rockwell view of student-athletes playing for the letter jacket and heading to the malt shoppe to make time with their best girl after the big game is so antiquated to be laughable.

The pressure to succeed at a school like Ohio State is clearly immense. And people make mistakes. This doesn’t mean Tressel is a bad person or a bad coach. He made a mistake and he’s going to pay the price. Anyone calling for more than what he got as punishment is a fool.

It just might be time for the Buckeyes to consider moving out of that glass house before someone really gets hurt.

***

Lot’s more on this in some really good pieces:

Jason Lloyd at The Beacon Journal nailed the issue in his column: OSU’s Tressel piles lies on top of lies

Ray Ratto at CBSSports.com: Ohio State doesn’t much give a damn about your outrage

Stewart Mandel at SI: Don’t buy Tressel and Ohio State’s defense for coach’s violation

Bill Livington at The PD: Lame defense affirms winning is the only thing that matters for Jim Tressel, Ohio State

Posted in Jim Tressel, moral failings, Ohio State | Leave a comment
07 Mar 2011

Surprisingly, Browns still division’s best

As bad as the Browns have been for the past couple of decades, they are still the best team in the AFC North, at least when it comes to all-time winning percentage.

  • The Browns’ .549 all-time winning percentage (485-398-13) is best in the division
  • Baltimore is at 535 (128-111-1)
  • Pittsburgh is at .520 (541-499-20)
  • No surprise, the Bengals bring up the rear at .435 (286-372-2)

So they have that going for them, which is nice. Hopefully the new regime of Mike Holmgren, Tom Heckert and Pat Shurmur can get the team back on a winning track before those numbers drop.

***

Oh dear, this isn’t good.

According to Yahoo! Sports, Ohio State coach Jim Tressel was informed that several Buckeyes players were selling memorabilia more than eight months before the school claims it was made aware of the scheme, a two-month investigation has found.

Tressel received information that players were selling items to Edward Rife – the owner of Fine Line Ink Tattoos in Columbus – as early as April 2010, according to a source. However, neither Ohio State nor the NCAA investigated the transactions or the players’ relationship with Rife until December 2010, when the school claims it was informed of the situation by the local United States Attorney’s office.

Oh boy. If this is true, we hope Tressel doesn’t hurt himself falling off his high horse.

(H/T to Ben Blog)

***

Denver Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow and New York Knicks center Amare Stoudemire have both backed Brandon Davies, who was kicked off the basketball team for a violation of the BYU honor code. The Salt Lake Tribune has reported Davies violated the code by having premarital sex with his girlfriend.

And we are supposed to care what Tebow and Stoudemire think, why?

***

Spring has returned at Anfield.

***

Interesting article at EPL Talk about how the influence of Americans on English soccer is resulting in a growth in statistical analysis among teams.

***

This was posted on UniWatch a few days ago and we still have no idea what is going on in this photo.

Posted in Anfield, Cleveland Browns, Liverpool | Leave a comment
06 Mar 2011

Hats off to Dirk Kuyt

Who’s better than Dirk Kuyt right now after his hat trick against Manchester United?

“It’s perfect,” Kuyt told Sky Sports afterwards. “You dream about the hat trick and to do it against United is the best feeling ever.

“I’m more than happy but I have to thank Luis (Suárez) because he played great and created two of the goals. They were quite easy goals, I used to score them in Holland when I played more like a striker. They count and I’m more than happy to take them.”

We’re happy, too, Dirk. We’re happy, too.

***

Following their loss to Chicago on Sunday, Miami is now a combined 2-8 on the season against Chicago, Boston and Orlando, and 12-18 against teams with winning records.

But they do lead the league in tears.

Just in case you were wondering.

Posted in Dirk Kuyt, Liverpool | Leave a comment
04 Mar 2011

Browns investing wisely in McCoy’s future

The Browns took another step toward ensuring Colt McCoy’s future when they signed quarterback Seneca Wallace to a three-year deal worth $9 million plus incentives.

While Wallace talked about wanting to be a starter next season, it’s clear that the Browns (i.e. team president Mike Holmgren) convinced Wallace that staying in Cleveland is the best place for the eight-year pro.

The key here is the Browns aren’t looking for Wallace to be a starter, but someone who can accelerate McCoy’s learning curve so the Browns can find out sooner, rather than later, if McCoy has what it takes to be a starting quarterback in the NFL.

Since Wallace doesn’t have the talent to be a starting quarterback in the league, he’s had to work harder and study more to try and find an edge, and obviously something is working as he’s made it this far. Having him around gives the Browns another voice experienced in the West Coast offense who can work with McCoy every day – and nothing bad can come from that.

While we wouldn’t want Wallace to be the Browns starting quarterback, as we learned last year having a capable backup is a good thing. If McCoy goes down early in a game, or misses a game with an injury, Wallace can hold his own for a game or a half – it’s not like the team has to rely on Todd Philcox or Spurgeon Wynn here.

More than anything else, the Browns have to find out what they have at quarterback with McCoy. And resigning Wallace moves them one step closer to putting the puzzle together.

Oh, the Browns also resigned linebacker D’Qwell Jackson to a one-year deal.

Jackson has missed 26 games over the past two seasons with injuries.

***

Indians pitcher Mitch Talbot doesn’t want to hear about the team being too young or too poor to compete in the American League.

“Same thing we heard in Tampa,” Talbot told The Plain Dealer after making his first start of spring training against the Texas Rangers. “Enough of this. Young? I don’t care. Let’s go win.”

If nothing else, we like the kid’s moxie.

***

While watching the Kent State-Akron game, we saw a commercial for ESPN Film’s upcoming documentary on The Fab 5 from Michigan.

We can’t believe its been 20 years since Chris Webber, Jimmy King, Jalen Rose, Juwan Howard and Ray Jackson were college freshmen.

While that makes us feel old, there’s no way we’re missing this one when it airs on March 13.

***

Finally, Brian Phillips at Slate has a great read on Parity vs. Greatness: The Most Important Debate in Sports.

Phillips writes that:

We don’t usually think about sports in these terms, but a league is a design problem—an aesthetic problem, really. A professional sports league has to balance distinct and often contradictory priorities, and how it does so helps to determine, before a player sends a single ball moving through space, the sort of experience it will offer fans.

One reason people like to watch team sports is to witness intensely competitive games—contests between evenly matched opponents in which the outcome hangs in doubt. Another is to watch extraordinarily gifted players play the game at the highest level. If you engineer a league to have an even distribution of talent—tightly regulating player movement, enforcing spending limits, funneling cash and talent to the weakest teams—then you encourage close games. But because the best players are spread out across more teams, you discourage fantastic displays of skill.

Phillips makes some interesting points. And as Cleveland fans, we face that question more now than ever.

When the Indians had an All-Star at every position (or so it seemed) in the mid- to late-’90s, we wanted greatness. But the economics of baseball changed and now the Indians can’t compete.

When the Cavs had LeBron, we wanted greatness; now we long for the team to be relevant again.

As for the Browns, all we really have is enduring hope. There really isn’t anything else.

Greatness or parity?

Which would you choose?

Posted in Cleveland Browns, Cleveland Indians, Colt McCoy, Seneca Wallace | Leave a comment
04 Mar 2011

Time for a Heat check

After blowing a 24-point lead on Thursday night, highlighted by a 40-9 run from Orlando, Miami is now a combined 2-7 on the season against Chicago, Boston and Orlando, and 12-16 against teams with winning records.

Starting tonight, the Heat face the Spurs (twice), Chicago, the Lakers and Oklahoma City over their next seven games.

Sounds like Pat Riley needs to get a better supporting cast around LeBron James.

Maybe things really aren’t any better away from home.

Posted in NBA | Leave a comment
02 Mar 2011
3 Comments

Brandon Davies should have gone to OSU

On Tuesday, BYU dismissed starting forward Brandon Davies from the team for the rest of the season for a violation of the school’s honor code. Davies reportedly had sex with his girlfriend.

Davies, who started 26 of 29 games for the third-ranked Cougars, averaged 11.1 points and a team-leading 6.2 rebounds. The team felt his loss right away, losing Wednesday night to New Mexico.

The dismissal greatly reduces BYU’s chances of being this year’s Butler in the upcoming NCAA tournament, as Kurt Kragthorpe explains in The Salt Lake Tribune:

This team could not lose afford to lose anybody from the playing rotation, and Davies is one of BYU’s best athletes. The Cougars were not especially deep to begin with, basically using six players for extended minutes and piecing things together from there. … The Honor Code is part of what distinguishes BYU as a private, church-owned school. … There’s obviously no double standard in play for prominent athletes.

No double standard for prominent athletes? What’s that about?

Davies should have gone to Ohio State. Then he would have just been suspended for a game next season against IUPUI.

Clearly BYU needs to get its priorities straightened out.

The only thing we can’t figure out is how Jim McMahon made it through four years at BYU without violating the honor code?

***

Tribe general manager Chris Antonetti reportedly has doubts that center fielder Grady Sizemore will be ready to start the season on the opening day roster.

We’re cool with that. The Indians are not going to contend this season, so we’d rather see Sizemore get healthy and play in the last 140+ games of the season than rush to be ready for the opener and then miss a bigger chunk of the season if he’s not fully healthy.

***

Andy Carroll, the £35 million pound man, is reportedly set to make his Liverpool debut on Sunday against Manchester United.

Time to start earning your money, son.

***

Showing how great minds think alike, Terry Pluto echoes something we touched on briefly yesterday, that the NFL Combine is just one piece of the puzzle when it comes to drafting players. Pluto writes that:

When it comes to the NFL draft, let’s hope the Browns do exactly what they did a year ago in the first round — they took the best pure football player, according to their ratings.

They didn’t lose focus with all the smoke from the NFL combine about how Joe Haden’s 40-yard times (about 4.5) showed he couldn’t be a big-time NFL cornerback. In fact, some scouts wondered if Haden could be better suited for safety.

Browns General Manager Tom Heckert did something very surprising for the NFL. He watched game tapes of Haden, over and over. He relied on reports from his scouts, who personally observed Haden in game conditions. They checked his character. They determined he was a guy who could really play, basing that judgment on how he played in games.

Until he shows us otherwise, we’re confident the Browns are in good hands with Heckert and team president Mike Holmgren running the draft board.

***

Staying on the NFL Draft, would the Browns consider selecting Oregon linebacker Casey Matthews?

That would be fine with us – as long as the Browns feel Matthews is a solid pick.

We’d hate for them to pick him, though, solely because they didn’t draft his brother, Clay III, in 2009. That wouldn’t make any sense, but we’re getting the feeling that people seem to be leaning toward that way of thinking.

Hopefully general manager Tom Heckert isn’t one of those people.

Posted in Brandon Davies, Cleveland Browns, Cleveland Indians, Liverpool, misplaced priorities, NFL draft
01 Mar 2011

What a difference four years make

With the Spurs coming to town tomorrow night to take on the Cavs, it got us to thinking about the 2007 NBA finals.

We realize there is turnover in professional sports and especially on the Cavs in the past 2-3 years as they chased their first championship.

But we were still surprised when we looked back and realized there are only two players left on the Cavs roster from that season – Anderson Varajeo and Boobie Gibson (by comparison, the Spurs still have four players: Matt Bonner, Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker).

That says something, we’re just not sure what.

***

Now that the NFL Combine is over it’s good to remember that just because someone trained for that particular event and put on an “impressive” performance doesn’t mean they can actually play at the NFL level.

Real Clear Sports came up with a list of the Top 10 Combine Performers over the years. The list shows that when considering who the Browns should draft, there’s more than just how many times you bench press 225 pounds.

***

Finally, here’s a good article about how Cleveland-based BioEnterprise is working to bring bioscience companies to Northeast Ohio. Since 2002, the group has helped 90 companies bring more than $975 million in new funding to the region.

Proof that something is going right in the region.

Posted in Cleveland Cavaliers, NFL combine | Leave a comment

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