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philmophlegmWell it's not skipping around in fields of wild flowers if that was what you were thinking.
No, one of the things that occupies my mind at this time of year is the NFL Draft. As this is sport (sort of) I don't expect many of you to be interested, but to truly understand philmophlegm, you need to understand the NFL Draft. So I'm going to explain it to you.
In American football, there are just 32 proper professional teams making up the National Football League (the NFL). There are no lower divisions, no promotion and relegation like you get in real football. Pretty much everyone who wants to play in the NFL plays football at university first.
One other big difference between the NFL and sports leagues in this country is that the NFL is set up to make every team equal - there are no 'rich' teams like Chelsea or Manchester United in the NFL. Each team can only spend the same amount on player salaries (the 'salary cap') and there are no transfers (or 'trades') of players between teams for money, only for other players or for selections in...
...The NFL Draft.
Way back in the 1930s, the league decided it would be a good idea if some order was applied to professional teams taking players when they finished college. So they came up with the Draft. Each year, each team takes it in turns to take their pick of the players finishing college with the worst team going first and the Super Bowl winners going last. They do this seven times (or seven 'rounds') over a weekend in April.
Until fairly recently, this was all pretty low-key stuff. Small print in the inside back pages of the newspaper at most. Now, it gets covered live on TV (on ESPN in the US and, brilliantly, on NASN over here). There's now a whole industry (and obviously, hundreds of websites and discussion forums) dedicated to ranking prospects and considering each team's draft needs.
The draft is important for the players themselves. If you're taken in the first round, you'll earn a lot more than if you're taken in the second. Example: if University of Southern California quarterback Matt Leinart had opted to enter the 2005 draft, he would almost certainly have been the first pick. Instead, he decided he wanted to enjoy another year in college, and so came out for the 2006 draft. Other players were suddenly regarded as better prospects, and so he was taken by the Arizona Cardinals with the tenth pick in the first round. The difference in the value of his contract with the Cardinals and what he would have had as the first pick in 2005 was $12million.
What makes the draft so unpredictable is that there is surprisingly little correlation between someone being a good player in college football and being a good player in the NFL. For example last season, the winner of the Heisman Trophy as the best player in college football was Ohio State University quarterback Troy Smith, but he isn't even expected to go in the first round of this year's draft. Several players at his own position are regarded as better prospects because Smith is too short, not accurate enough etc.
What most concerns draft enthusiasts (or 'draftniks') like me is trying to predict which players will be stars in the NFL and which ones will be 'busts'. We're all trying to predict what each team will do (I'm glued to various football gossip websites), but we all also have our own views on what our favourite team should do. We study college statistics, physical characteristics (height, weight etc), how fast (usually over forty yards) they are and how strong they are (measured either at the NFL 'Scouting Combine', at each college's 'Pro Day' or in individual workouts) and even how clever they are (measured using something called the 'Wonderlic test'.
This year, things are even more exciting than normal for me because my team, the Oakland Raiders, on account of being the worst team in football (they only won two games last season) has the first pick in each round.
It seems likely that the Raiders will pick one of two players: JaMarcus Russell, a quarterback from Louisiana State University or Calvin Johnson, a wide receiver from Georgia Tech University. (Quarterbacks are the guys who throw the football, wide receivers are the fast guys who catch it.) Both of these players are highly rated, but very different. Russell is huge for a quarterback (6'6" 260lbs) and is said to have the strongest throwing arm in all of football. He can apparently throw a football 83 yards through the air, whilst kneeling. But he's a little bit raw and did not play in a completely pro-style offense while in college, so there's a little bit more risk. To use a draft cliche, he is a 'classic boom-or-bust prospect'.
Johnson is regarded as a much safer bet, but wide receiver is not considered as important a position as quarterback. If you have great wide receivers, they still won't do anything if your quarterback isn't good enough to get them the ball. Johnson is regarded as such a great prospect (the best at his position in perhaps twenty years) for his combination of catching ability, running precise routes (i.e. being in the right position to catch the ball), size (he's 6'5", 239lbs - taller and heavier than other wide receivers and crucially the NFL cornerbacks whose job it would be to stop him from catching the ball) and speed (his time in the 40 yard dash at the scouting combine was 4.35 seconds - the sort of speed an Olympic sprinter would expect). Also, he's regarded as a nice guy - for some reason, NFL receivers are often out-and-out divas or worse.
And that brings us to the big unknown in the Raiders draft strategy (and another story taking up column inches in the blogs and forums). Two years ago, the Raiders gave their first round pick in the draft (the seventh pick overall) and a linebacker caller Napoleon Harris to the Minnesota Vikings in return for superstar wide receiver Randy Moss. Moss is a bit of a jerk who had worn out his welcome in Minnesota, but was one of the most talented players in the league. The Raiders have a history of reclamation projects, and it seemed that he would help bring the good times back to Oakland.
Of course, it hasn't worked out like that. The Raiders were very bad in 2005 and truly abysmal in 2006. (Moss wasn't at all bad in 2005, although he did get injured, but last year he seemingly couldn't be bothered.) It doesn't look like he wants to play for the Raiders again. So they'll try to trade him. The hot rumour last week was that the deal would be Randy Moss and tight end Courtney Anderson from the Raiders to the Green Bay Packers in return for inexperienced but talented young quarterback Aaron Rodgers and a pick in the 2009 draft that would depend upon Rodgers's performance over the next two seasons. Now if that happened, the Raiders would have gained a talented young quarterback and lost a big fast wide receiver - which would presumably make it much more likely that they would select Calvin Johnson.
We'll see.
One further conspiracy theory about all this. Supposedly the Green Bay player pushing for Randy Moss to come to the Packers is their great quarterback Brett Favre. Brett Favre's agent is Bus Cook. Randy Moss's agent is Bus Cook. And Calvin Johnson's agent (whose 3% commission would be that much greater if his client was the first pick)...is Bus Cook.
Hopefully that hasn't bored you too much. If I'm being honest, I get more excited by the Draft than the Super Bowl. Weird I know.
No, one of the things that occupies my mind at this time of year is the NFL Draft. As this is sport (sort of) I don't expect many of you to be interested, but to truly understand philmophlegm, you need to understand the NFL Draft. So I'm going to explain it to you.
In American football, there are just 32 proper professional teams making up the National Football League (the NFL). There are no lower divisions, no promotion and relegation like you get in real football. Pretty much everyone who wants to play in the NFL plays football at university first.
One other big difference between the NFL and sports leagues in this country is that the NFL is set up to make every team equal - there are no 'rich' teams like Chelsea or Manchester United in the NFL. Each team can only spend the same amount on player salaries (the 'salary cap') and there are no transfers (or 'trades') of players between teams for money, only for other players or for selections in...
...The NFL Draft.
Way back in the 1930s, the league decided it would be a good idea if some order was applied to professional teams taking players when they finished college. So they came up with the Draft. Each year, each team takes it in turns to take their pick of the players finishing college with the worst team going first and the Super Bowl winners going last. They do this seven times (or seven 'rounds') over a weekend in April.
Until fairly recently, this was all pretty low-key stuff. Small print in the inside back pages of the newspaper at most. Now, it gets covered live on TV (on ESPN in the US and, brilliantly, on NASN over here). There's now a whole industry (and obviously, hundreds of websites and discussion forums) dedicated to ranking prospects and considering each team's draft needs.
The draft is important for the players themselves. If you're taken in the first round, you'll earn a lot more than if you're taken in the second. Example: if University of Southern California quarterback Matt Leinart had opted to enter the 2005 draft, he would almost certainly have been the first pick. Instead, he decided he wanted to enjoy another year in college, and so came out for the 2006 draft. Other players were suddenly regarded as better prospects, and so he was taken by the Arizona Cardinals with the tenth pick in the first round. The difference in the value of his contract with the Cardinals and what he would have had as the first pick in 2005 was $12million.
What makes the draft so unpredictable is that there is surprisingly little correlation between someone being a good player in college football and being a good player in the NFL. For example last season, the winner of the Heisman Trophy as the best player in college football was Ohio State University quarterback Troy Smith, but he isn't even expected to go in the first round of this year's draft. Several players at his own position are regarded as better prospects because Smith is too short, not accurate enough etc.
What most concerns draft enthusiasts (or 'draftniks') like me is trying to predict which players will be stars in the NFL and which ones will be 'busts'. We're all trying to predict what each team will do (I'm glued to various football gossip websites), but we all also have our own views on what our favourite team should do. We study college statistics, physical characteristics (height, weight etc), how fast (usually over forty yards) they are and how strong they are (measured either at the NFL 'Scouting Combine', at each college's 'Pro Day' or in individual workouts) and even how clever they are (measured using something called the 'Wonderlic test'.
This year, things are even more exciting than normal for me because my team, the Oakland Raiders, on account of being the worst team in football (they only won two games last season) has the first pick in each round.
It seems likely that the Raiders will pick one of two players: JaMarcus Russell, a quarterback from Louisiana State University or Calvin Johnson, a wide receiver from Georgia Tech University. (Quarterbacks are the guys who throw the football, wide receivers are the fast guys who catch it.) Both of these players are highly rated, but very different. Russell is huge for a quarterback (6'6" 260lbs) and is said to have the strongest throwing arm in all of football. He can apparently throw a football 83 yards through the air, whilst kneeling. But he's a little bit raw and did not play in a completely pro-style offense while in college, so there's a little bit more risk. To use a draft cliche, he is a 'classic boom-or-bust prospect'.
Johnson is regarded as a much safer bet, but wide receiver is not considered as important a position as quarterback. If you have great wide receivers, they still won't do anything if your quarterback isn't good enough to get them the ball. Johnson is regarded as such a great prospect (the best at his position in perhaps twenty years) for his combination of catching ability, running precise routes (i.e. being in the right position to catch the ball), size (he's 6'5", 239lbs - taller and heavier than other wide receivers and crucially the NFL cornerbacks whose job it would be to stop him from catching the ball) and speed (his time in the 40 yard dash at the scouting combine was 4.35 seconds - the sort of speed an Olympic sprinter would expect). Also, he's regarded as a nice guy - for some reason, NFL receivers are often out-and-out divas or worse.
And that brings us to the big unknown in the Raiders draft strategy (and another story taking up column inches in the blogs and forums). Two years ago, the Raiders gave their first round pick in the draft (the seventh pick overall) and a linebacker caller Napoleon Harris to the Minnesota Vikings in return for superstar wide receiver Randy Moss. Moss is a bit of a jerk who had worn out his welcome in Minnesota, but was one of the most talented players in the league. The Raiders have a history of reclamation projects, and it seemed that he would help bring the good times back to Oakland.
Of course, it hasn't worked out like that. The Raiders were very bad in 2005 and truly abysmal in 2006. (Moss wasn't at all bad in 2005, although he did get injured, but last year he seemingly couldn't be bothered.) It doesn't look like he wants to play for the Raiders again. So they'll try to trade him. The hot rumour last week was that the deal would be Randy Moss and tight end Courtney Anderson from the Raiders to the Green Bay Packers in return for inexperienced but talented young quarterback Aaron Rodgers and a pick in the 2009 draft that would depend upon Rodgers's performance over the next two seasons. Now if that happened, the Raiders would have gained a talented young quarterback and lost a big fast wide receiver - which would presumably make it much more likely that they would select Calvin Johnson.
We'll see.
One further conspiracy theory about all this. Supposedly the Green Bay player pushing for Randy Moss to come to the Packers is their great quarterback Brett Favre. Brett Favre's agent is Bus Cook. Randy Moss's agent is Bus Cook. And Calvin Johnson's agent (whose 3% commission would be that much greater if his client was the first pick)...is Bus Cook.
Hopefully that hasn't bored you too much. If I'm being honest, I get more excited by the Draft than the Super Bowl. Weird I know.
no subject
Date: 2007-03-21 01:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-03-21 02:38 pm (UTC)