Bill Belichick – HO!

Going into the 2009-2010 season, now's the time to look back at what's happened since the Super Bowl. The Patriots made some key veteran signings, had a few interesting trades, the retirement of Rodney Harrison, and so on. All of these are certainly important and will have major effects on the franchise in the months to come. But there's this one aspect of the offseason, I just can't get it out of my head. It really has been nagging me since the draft, like a toothache, but worse. I'm aware that this was already common knowledge, but this offseason really showed that Al Davis, owner of the Oakland Raiders, is ****ing crazy. And Bill Belichick is on a mission to prove it, not just to everyone else, but also to Al himself.

We'll return to Bill's involvement in this shortly. But first, just as a friendly reminder, Al Davis used the 7th overall pick of the draft to take Darrius Heyward-Bay, wide receiver out of Maryland. To be nice, we'll call this one a "head-scratcher" of a pick, since he skipped two highly regarded picks in Michael Crabtree and Jeremy Maclin, and instead of trading down to get more value from his position, simply took the man with the fastest 40 time with a high pick. He was still projected to go in the second round, maybe low first at best, so we can say, "OK Al, you got your patented crazy move of the year, let's keep this draft moving."

Well after some trading around with picks, the next choice the Raiders made was Mike Mitchell, safety out of Ohio. Now, I'm not saying that guys like Mel Kiper and Todd McShay know more about drafting than some of these General Managers, because they don't. But when ESPN hasn't even gone to the trouble of collecting footage of a player, because Mel and Todd didn't think he was even draftable, either Davis has some amazing scouts, or he's lost it. Typically, I'm a big proponent of franchises not listening to the commentators, but in this rare instance, the Raiders probably would have been better off just taking the next best player on Mel's Big Board (also known as "The Detroit Lions Approach to Drafting.")

Al's always been a little "hands-on" for an owner, and I can understand why he thinks he can be. He's been a true staple in football for almost half a century. But Al, you're 80. You've successfully scared off good coaches like Mike Shanahan and Jon Gruden, plus, I somehow doubt Lane Kiffen was any worse than Tom Cable. You overpaid Javon Walker, an injury prone wide out who walked around Oakland with too much bling on, and got the hell beat out of him, because someone failed to tell Javon that downtown Oakland isn't quite like downtown Green Bay or Denver. Whoops.

What do Al Davis' frequent missteps have to do with Belichick? Bill is on an honest-to-God mission to show Al just how bad a job he is doing. For the last few years, he has just loved picking up Oakland players that Davis had given up on, and trying to prove that they can play well. The Randy Moss trade speaks for itself. But in case it doesn't you've been in a coma for the last two years: Al Davis traded 1st and 7th round picks, as well as linebacker Napoleon Harris to the Vikings for Moss in 2005. Two subpar seasons later, Davis thought he was dumping an over-the-hill receiver off on the Patriots for a 4th round draft pick. Randy scored 23 TD's that following season with New England (more than twice the combined total he had over two seasons with the Raiders) and racked up just under 1,500 yards (he had just 553 the season prior). That's the most obvious example of Bill using a former Raider to make Al look bad.

In 2008, the Raiders released Lamont Jordan, who, again, Davis thought was useless. In New England's committee backfield last season, he averaged 4.5 yards per carry, and got 4 touchdowns on just 80 touches. Not feature-back worthy, but certainly useful. We traded to get receiver Doug Gabriel, and while it didn't work out too well (no help to there being no other capable wide receivers that year), Bill's penchant for Raiders has not diminished. Derrick Burgess and Andrew Walter are the newest additions, and while filling a major need at outside linebacker, Burgess has the potential to really show Davis that he needs to get his act together. Burgess had 35 sacks between 2005-2007, and, despite being on one of the league's worst teams, made the Pro Bowl twice. But Burgess wanted out of the Al Davis system, and the Pats got him on a discount. And should Walter ever be needed, Belichick is surely working on just how to make Davis realize that he and Randy Moss were more than capable of scoring touchdowns when both were wearing black and silver.

Add to this the trade made with the Raiders for straight draft picks, as we grabbed back-to-back picks to take defensive tackle Ron Brace and corner back Darius Butler. With that trade down, the Raiders took the safety Mitchell. Since we had the pick IMMEDIATELY after the Raiders would-be selection, the Patriots showed pretty significant interest in beating the Raiders to their next pick. I wonder if Davis will look back on Mitchell's career of having good 40's but sloppy tackles, and compare that with Brace's seasons of eating people whole, and wonder if he was right to trade down.

We've heard many times that Belichick is a rabid fan of football history, hence why he gave Doug Flutie the chance to make that now-famous (though completely inconsequential) drop-kick. As a student of the game, Belichick is more than aware of the contributions Davis has made to the NFL. And that would explain why he wants to make Davis look bad, so Al hangs it up before embarrassing himself even more.

And yes, he has done a lot for this game, though that's easy to forget lately. Al Davis was the first Raiders coach to have a winning season in 1963, his rookie campaign. Since transitioning to being owner/general manager in 1967, the Raiders have won their division 13 times, won 3 Super Bowls and 1 AFL Championship, as well as made them one of two teams to be in a Super Bowl in 4 different decades. Davis hired the first Latino coach (Tom Flores) in 1979, the second African American coach (Art Shell) in 1989, and made Amy Trask president of the Raiders, the highest position a woman had ever held in the NFL.

Al Davis should be remembered as a major part of this league. But for the better part of this decade, Al Davis has been a joke, impatiently firing coaches, overpaying players, and annoying the hell out of said players and coaches with his constant meddling. Instead of being remembered for his contributions and making the Raiders a team to beat, he's becoming a villain to his own fans by turning the Raiders into a joke. This is how I will remember Davis:

As Mumm-Ra from the Thundercats. A spell-casting villain, able to extend his own lifetime, yet unable to beat a bunch of kitties. That sounds, and looks, like Al Davis to me. Davis is adamant that he will not retire until the Raiders win two more Super Bowls, or he dies. Well Oakland, at least you can look forward to more draft picks like speedy Darrius Heyward-Bay and fatty JaMarcus Russell for the next 50 years. Just pray that Bill Belichick, the man you all despise for the so-called “Snow Job,” can be your Lion-O and convince Al Davis to hang it up before Oakland becomes the second team to go 0-16.

THE PATRIOT FACT BEGINS

This is probably the first blog to officially begin with its 13th post, but as Batman Begins showed, sometimes its best to simply start all over. I started writing pointless commentary on football with a Patriotic perspective last year for Gang Green TV. Turns out what began as what I thought would be a "Oh yeah, man, sounds cool, I'll totally do that...until I get bored and lazy 2 weeks in" sort of commitment, ended up being pretty fun.

So while I'll continue my affiliation with the guys at Gang Green, I'll keep a handy record of my belligerence here. Also, "Pinheads or Patriots" was a working title name that stuck, so here I am in Season 2 with "The Patriot Fact."

This is the point where a blogger tells you what to expect, how often the updates will come, basically why you should ever look at this again. I promise nothing.

Except that I love football, and often have something pretty ignorant to say about it. So below, you can find all my posts from last year. Above will be my attempt at two years of commitment.

One month to the regular season. And I hear some guy named Tom Brady is playing for the Patriots this season. He's supposed to be pretty okay.

Seriously this time, are we Pinheads?

Pinheads or Patriots?

(Originally posted March 10, 2009)

Bill Belichick is the sort of head coach that is so smart, he has you scratching your head all the time, but you’re smiling with the end result. There are times when Patriots fans have wondered if he's making a bad decision. When he committed to Tom Brady in the Super Bowl over a fully recovered Drew Bledsoe, some questioned. When the likes of Lawyer Milloy and Ty Law were allowed to leave because of salary issues, most doubted. The fact that Matt Cassel was even still on the roster after this last preseason was too much for some. But our head-scratching is always put to rest.

Then came the trade of the 34th overall pick in the 2009 draft for Cassel and Mike Vrabel. That’s quite the going-away present for Scott Pioli. Normally, I would trust the Belichick way, knowing we somehow got the better end of the deal, but that new Chiefs GM knows what he’s doing too. A lot of nasty rumors are out there about Belichick keeping promises to Pioli, but let’s get over playground politics and talk some actual football, people.

There are obvious downsides to this deal. The hottest free agent this year went for essentially half of a second round draft choice. We lost a strong leader on our defense, a direct blow to an oft-injured linebacking corps. Perhaps the biggest blow came when reports leaked that we could have had the Bronco’s first round pick, so long as Tampa Bay traded them for Jay Cutler. That’s obviously pretty conditional on the Bucs, but even if something wasn’t worked out, the Patriots could have milked the situation just a little more to see if they could get that first rounder.

What could have been going through Bill’s mind? Football talks a lot about that “clock inside your head” that counts down for a quarterback. That was what was going on for the Patriots brass, only this clock was about the salary cap. As of the day before free agency started, the Patriots had the second least amount of cap room to work with, just $3.2 million. It was estimated that New England would need about $10 million to sign their free agents and Draft picks, and we had some serious holes to fill. Here’s some of the notable contracts that ran up: FB Heath Evans, WR Jabar Gaffney, S Rodney Harrison, LB Junior Seau, P Chris Hanson, RB LaMont Jordan.

When you talk about aspects of the Patriots dynasty that have resulted in success, what comes to mind first? Tom Brady? Bill Belichick? Perhaps defense? The most overlooked aspect, but one of the most valuable parts, is how we manage Robert Kraft’s checkbook year-to-year, and part of that has to do with foresight. Want to know who the free agents will be in 2010? Mike Vrabel, Vince Wilfork, Richard Seymour, Kevin Faulk, Logan Mankins, Stephen Gostkowski and Tedy Bruschi. Wilfork is going to take precedence over the rest, and will come with a big price tag. Seymour, Mankins and Gostkowski are serious keepers, and also hold a high price tag. But next year, would we have gone to the same lengths to keep Vrabel, Bruschi and Faulk as the rest of them? No. Pinning a “C” a player’s uniform doesn’t always mean they’re worth the big bucks…sorry ‘Tek.

With his clock ticking, Belichick knew he needed cap room fast to make room for guys like RB Fred Taylor, WR Greg Lewis, CB Shawn Springs. In case you hadn’t notice, we needed a good running back, a solid third wideout, and THANK YOU LORD WE ACTUALLY WENT AFTER A CORNBERBACK. Not to mention re-signing safety James Sanders and punter Chris Hanson. All of which are official, just a week into free agency, unlike the snails-pace of last year. If we let Cassel sit too long, Pioli could have ended up playing hardball and claim he’d wait until the draft for a franchise quarterback. And Tampa could have chickened out on the deal, leaving us stuck for too long with a toxic asset.

Does this help me sleep at night? No. Not at all. I haven’t slept in days. I toss and turn each night, with nightmares, hearing over and over, “And with the 13^th pick of the 2009 NFL Draft, the New England Patriots pick…Cap’N Crunch, University of Iowa.” Or some other terrible out of shape cartoon character. Maybe I have issues. Either way, It still infuriates me, because this is typical boring Belichick. He’s all brains and no fun. First round picks are fun.

I will console you with one rationale, though. Keep in mind that we would have been trading within the AFC. Which team would you rather share a conference with; a Cassel-led Kansas City Chiefs, or a Cassel-led/McDaniels-coached Denver Broncos?

If the Broncos were able to end our playoff run with Jake “The Snake” Plummer, I’d rather we would stick Matt on a team whose best player is their Tight End. Because believe me, that’s never a good sign.

One Great Game

Pinheads or Patriots?

(Originally posted February 5, 2009)

Super Bowl XLIII was best explained not by the commentators, the post-game interviews, or Monday Morning Quarterbacks around the country. Football as a whole was summed up by a great modern mind where we least expected one to emerge. We saw his philosophy when Kurt Warner, stumbling all over himself, somehow tossed up a perfect touchdown pass to Ben Patrick. We saw it when James Harrison stepped in front of a pass before anyone could even see where the ball was going. This principle was well seen when Larry Fitzgerald leapt into the air and pulled down what would be an impossible touchdown catch for just about anyone else, or when everyone knew he was going in the end zone when he caught ball with 63 more yards to run. And Santonio Holmes summed it up when he won the game with what will (hopefully, to Patriots fans) be the best remembered catch in Super Bowl history.

Yes, the ultimate statement explaining football was made last night by the Miller High Life man: All you need is just one second.

That's all it takes to turn a game around, defensively, offensively, or specially. And Super Bowl XLIII was played for every second it was worth. With the lone exception of probably Hines Ward, every player in that game lived up to what was hyped about them. And in the case of Santonio Holmes stepping up, it was the un-hyped factor that caught the game by surprise to win it all. Warner, Fitzgerald, Anquan Boldin, Edgerrin James, and Darnell Dockett certainly lived up to hype. But the Steeler defense showed up for the game changing 100 yard interception return, as defensive MVP's sometimes can do. This was a game of memorable moments, without a doubt. Easily the best Patriots-Free Super Bowl in over a decade.

We can go through every play that went the Steeler's way to say why they won, and vice versa as to why the Cardinals lost, but football won this year. The Cardinals played a game worth watching when many wrote them off as the joke they so often have been. The Steelers put on a performance that could keep that headset on Mike Tomlin's head for a great long time to come. Hats off to both teams, but moreso, thanks. Thanks for a great game, and especially thanks for getting people to already begin to stop talking about that nightmare last year. It only takes one second to make history, but it takes a great deal of Miller High Life to forget history.

Tampa Bound

Blog X

(Originally posted January 20, 2009)

The Super Bowl XLIII matchup is a bit of a surprise. The Arizona Cardinals are resembling Michael Myers, they just keep getting back up even when they should die. Many counted them out of the playoffs from the start, since, well, they're the Arizona Cardinals. This is a franchise famous for only two things: being featured in "Jerry Maguire," and blowing a 20-point lead in 2006 to the Chicago Bears (who, apparently, were who the Cardinals thought they were.) Yet, many people forget that they were in "Jerry Maguire." That is a true testament to the fame of the Arizona Cardinals.

The Steelers are not so surprising, but they did fly low on the radar under the Titans and the Colts. They have the best defense in the league, and that can apparently win you a game or two. Ben Roethlisberger is an impressive athlete, who I will always remember as being the only person with broad enough shoulders to actually fit a name like "Roethlisberger" on the back of his jersey (Houshmandzadeh does not fit nearly as suavely, no offense T.J.) But the thing that truly makes the Steelers not so surprising is their overall record as a historical franchise. They're currently tied with the 49ers and Cowboys for most Super Bowl wins at 5 apiece. The Cardinals have never even reached an NFC Championship game before this season. But sports have evolved in the last 43 years since the Super Bowl got going, underdogs can now be something to be feared.

We live in a world where Appalachian State beat Michigan, Boise State beat Oklahoma, 14-point underdog New England beat the St. Louis Rams, the Red Sox came back from a 3 game deficit to beat the New York Yankees and go to the World Series, George Mason made the NCAA Final Four over some of the greatest college basketball programs in the country, and Jesse "The Body" Ventura won a contest that did not have a fixed outcome to become a legitimate United States Governor. Things are different. Underdog wins may still be few and far between, but are not a total rarity.

Almost more importantly to mention than underdogs, terrible franchises can win. To date, only 18 of the 32 NFL franchises have Super Bowl Trophies. In the last 11 Super Bowls, 5 teams won their franchises' first Super Bowl : Denver Broncos, St. Louis Rams, Baltimore Ravens, New England Patriots, and Tampa Bay Buccaneers (6 have won, if you count the Indianapolis Colts, as I'm sure few Indy fans really care that the Baltimore Colts won Super Bowl V, 13 years before coming to their city). The old school favorites are struggling. Of those three teams tied for most Super Bowl victories, only Pittsburgh has a trophy (let alone an APPEARANCE) out of the last dozen Super Bowls. Consider the number of franchises that are considered jokes at the beginning of a season. Then consider the franchises that are perennially considered jokes at the beginning of each season. The Arizona Cardinals are certainly among those. While the Patriots are now considered one of the best teams, we were a joke before 2001. The Buccaneers were the joke of countless seasons.

The Buccaneers are an interesting franchise to bring up in this same breath as the Cardinals. Their lone Super Bowl victory came when Jon Gruden swashbuckled his coaching allegiances from the Raiders to the Buccaneers, and the two teams met in the Super Bowl in his first season as Tampa Bay's head coach. He picked apart Raiders quarterback Rich Ganon, as the Buccaneers pillaged and plundered Oakland for all it was worth, while Al Davis started listing the various ways he could sink his franchise down to Davy Jones' Locker without anyone's help. Simply, they did not stand a chance with Gruden on the other side of the field, as he knew the Oakland offense inside and out, as some members of that Raiders squad have since stated.

The coach of the Cardinals, Ken Whisenhunt, was a pretty successful offensive coordinator for three years before taking his current job. In his first season, he helped lead a rookie quarterback to winning all 13 of the games he started, and being the first AFC team to win 15 games in a season. In his second season as offensive coordinator, he won the Super Bowl. Not too shabby. He was coordinator for some team named the Pittsburgh Steelers. Maybe you've heard somebody mention them recently? Whisenhunt will break out every single old note he has on Roethlisberger, Willie Parker, Hines Ward, and the entire offensive line to win this game.

No win is certain after last year's Super Bowl. People who are acting like the Steelers winning is guaranteed are delusional. I thought I could guarantee the Cardinals wouldn't get through the first, second, and third games of the playoffs. Apparently, I was delusional. Ken Whisenhunt helped mold Big Ben into the quarterback he is today, and he's not so far removed from the system that we can rule out him pulling a Jon Gruden. The one thing that is certain: The Cardinals are NOT who we thought they were. The only uncertainty: Will the Steelers let them off the hook?

One Round Left

Pinheads or Patriots? Episode 9

(Originally posted January 17th, 2009)

I would make a rather poor psychic. My Super Bowl picks of Indianapolis and Carolina both lost their first games of the postseason. To the thousands of you who placed bets based upon my expert analysis, I apologize. But many of these games had bright sides for New England fans.

Eli Manning is going home. Peyton already choked on his fruit salad. Bill Parcells got to buy the groceries this year, but he's not invited to dinner. Yet, Patriots Nation held it breath until Sunday night, as one team we could not stand to win remained. And whose fault is it they were still standing?

Sorry. My bad. Six weeks ago, I made some lame crack in this column about how Philip Rivers had cursed the Patriots, yet had no control over his own team that could finish 8-8 at best. Well, I blew it. I committed the dreaded Inadvertent Reverse-Jinx, as the Chargers then won out the rest of their season. I was pretty terrified they might make it to the championship. But in my favor was the losing streak of high-seeded teams over the last 5 years. How did this hurt the low-seeded Chargers?

Pittsburgh had the 2 seed, which apparently hurts them. But the Chargers already had my Inadvertent Reverse-Jinx. Science class taught us with fun magnets that two positives repel, thus, these two supernatural reasons to win cancelled each other out, dooming the Chargers.
Don't believe me?

Good. Because the truth is, you don't need hocus pocus to explain that game, the Chargers were just a bad team. You know the old saying, "What happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object?" In that sentence, the Steelers were both the unstoppable force and the immovable object, while the Chargers were the innocent bystander that gets rolled over without a chance. They were lucky that their first opponent in the playoffs have choked more than any team in the last decade.

As for the other games, the Ravens looked very impressive on the road against the Titans. But possibly lacking Terrell Suggs and Samari Rolle, that dominant defense might let up a few big plays.

The Eagles are making a case, despite an unspectacular performance by Brian Westbrook. It doesn't hurt that Asante Samuel is one of the most dominant postseason defensive backs in history.

I am still in shock that Arizona developed a defense. If this isn't a 2 week fluke, the Cardinals might reach their first Super Bowl. The curse of the Pottsville Pennsylvanians, one of the last great sports curses, may be shattered.

But I put my faith in Pottsville. It took 86 years to break the curse of one man, the curse by an entire city should last a few hundred, minimum. Morseso, I base my assumption on the smack-down Philly gave to the Giants, I think they can figure out the sudden resurgent Arizona defense.

My new Super Bowl pick is the Steelers vs. the Eagles. Do I care who goes? Nah. There's no particular bad blood left over with the four remaining teams and the Patriots. I'm just looking for a good game now. But based upon my picks, if you're a smart gambler, maybe you should just place your bets on a Baltimore-Arizona Super Bowl.

For Boston, For Boston, We Sink Our Season Down the Drain

Pinheads or Patriots? College Special
(Originally posted January 9, 2009)

Tell a Boston College fan that their athletic program will have a headline on the ESPN web page. Tell them. Really, give it a whirl. Someone that goes to BC games drunk and barely pays attention will probably say, "You're damn right! BC RULES!" Someone who actually enjoys BC athletics and follows actual sports is probably smart enough to say, "Nah. You're full of it...Wait, really? And it's not hockey finals season?"

This is not to diminish the accomplishments of Boston College at all. I love BC athletics. I've had football season tickets for five straight years, and Coach Jerry York once invited me into the locker room to meet the players for my support of the hockey team. But those experiences gave me perspective on how all of the city feels about the major college program in the area. BC has a weak and disloyal fan-base that cares more for the Red Sox, Celtics and Patriots. The week leading up to the Gaylords Hotel Music City Bowl (yeah, I know, I know), WBZ News highlighted the three big stories in Boston sports at the time : the Patriots season ending, the Celtics winning, and that Red Sox spring training was just 43 days away.

Yet this week, I opened the ESPN homepage to find not one, but TWO headlines featuring BC on the main page. Eagles basketball defeated #1 ranked North Carolina, and football head coach Jeff Jagodzinski was coveting thy neighbor's head coaching job. A rather bittersweet combination.

I'm sure most of the nation has heard more than they care to listen about this situation with Coach Jags interviewing for the New York Jets vacancy, resulting in his job being threatened, and then terminated. If you'd like the position of an Eagle's fan, I can give you two. One is that of the aforementioned tailgating drunkard, who will spit on Coach Jags' name and curse the day they ever tried to pronounce his name. (Reasonable fans are, understandably, upset as well.) My position?

Athletic Director Gene DeFilippo needs help. Not just coaching help, but psychological help. He lost a great college coach in Tom O'Brien just two years ago. Coach Jags came in and gave BC football its best season in history with O'Brien's leftovers, got the team ranked #2 in the country for a couple weeks, then made quarterback Matt Ryan into a Heisman candidate and the first quarterback picked in the draft. And Gene gets jealous that Jags is making googly eyes across the street? He's lucky to be able to say that Boston College can get GREAT coaches. New England should be bull that BC gave Giants coach Tom Coughlin his start.

Jagodzinski had his own reputation to look out for. If you never saw the man, imagine a basket-full of puppies riding a rainbow all the way to Disney World. He's happier than that. He undoubtedly was optimistic about his first head coaching job, ready to make BC even better than it already was. And he did. But then he started recruiting.

BC is a great football school. It gets very good athletes, and makes many of them better. But it does not get great athletes to start with. No matter how great a coach may be, names of an institution carry much more weight. Those pearly whites Jeff flashed would never lure a good running back away from USC, Notre Dame, Oklahoma, or just about any other top 20 team.

Quarterback Chris Crane, who was hated at the start of the season by fans, but sorely missed after he went down with a broken collarbone, is graduating. Freshman QB Dominique Davis successfully ended BC's bowl game win streak, which had been the longest in the nation. The Eagles defense was one of the top rated in the country, but the majority of the players were seniors, with Mark Herzlich and B.J. Raji expected to go in the first round of the NFL Draft. Though he had two heralded years, Jags knew the honeymoon was over, and he was going to get crushed with his poor recruiting classes. He was going to lose next season. A lot. His coaching reputation would be sullied, and there was nothing he could do about it. BC's name just couldn't pull in the players he needed.

I'm not happy he's gone. But loyalty means little in today's job market. I've heard a lot of people say "Well, this is how sports are, coaches jump ship all the time," and that's no defense. The fact is, ALL JOBS are like that these days, not just coaching. Dennis and Callahan can rip Jags a new one on WEEI for leaving, but the fact is that if ESPN came looking for a couple new hosts for SportsCenter, I doubt they'd turn down the interview because of their contracts to an AM radio station in Boston. I may have a good relationship with my boss, but if there's a job with more prestige, more money, and my current job will hurt my reputation if I keep it, I'd take a risk too. Coach a college program that's looking like it will go under, or take the shot at an NFL Head Coaching job that actually had a winning record? As an American living in a capitalist world, can you blame Jagodzinski? Hell, it's a win-win for him too, because BC still has to pay him.

DeFilippo should have realized that only a handful of good candidates would jump at this job. BC does not have the financial support to buy out a contract, while still picking up a good coach. I'll call it now that Frank Spaziani, current defensive coordinator will get the job. Because he'll be cheap, loyal, and probably deserved the job in the first place. But if Gene DeFilippo thinks firing the head coach in the middle of recruiting season made him look more like a man, then fit the man for his bigger jock strap. But how do you feel now Gene? How do you feel? Right. Now. Like an idiot? Like an already screwed program just shot itself in the foot? Is a newly appointed, former defensive coordinator, going to be able to convince a high school quarterback that BC can develop him into a star? Jags could say that, touting Matty Ice in his resume, and it didn't hurt he led Brett Favre as an offensive coordinator. But unless you pick a washed-up former success like Denny Green that's completely desperate for a job, nobody will do better. You should have just trusted that he wouldn't get the job, and continue on with the season. But alas, Frank Spaziani should end up with a promotion.

If I could sum up why this was a bad idea by BC, it would be one sentiment: When a recruit can't pronounce a head coach's name, Jeff Jags sounds like a much cooler nickname than Franky Spaz.