2012 NFL Draft Live Blog (Day 2)

33.  St. Louis Rams – Brian Quick, WR, Appalachian State

Bryan just died a little inside.

34. Indianapolis Colts – Coby Fleener, TE, Stanford

This is who everyone said the Colts were hoping would fall to them in the second round. Many believe that Upshaw, who was also available, was a higher value, but Luck and Fleener already have chemistry, and this will certainly help his development.

35. Baltimore Ravens – Courtney Upshaw, OLB, Alabama

Best pick of the draft so far? It just might be.

36. Denver Broncos – Derek Wolfe, DT, Cincinnati

If I’m Peyton Manning, I’m starting to really regret not going to San Francisco…

37. Cleveland Browns – Mitchell Schwartz, OT, California

I’m just baffled by this pick. Why take Schwartz over Mike Adams? There were also quite a few receivers available.

38. Jacksonville Jaguars – Andre Branch, DE, Clemson

This isn’t a bad pick by any means. The Jags have made a couple good picks already in this draft. Very unusual for them.

39. St. Louis Rams – Janoris Jenkins, CB, North Alabama

Jenkins is extremely talented, but fell this far because of his off-the-field issues. He should be able to help their defense immediately though.

40. Carolina Panthers – Amini Silatolu, OG, Midwestern State

What did Cordy Glenn do to get passed up by so many teams?

41. Buffalo Bills – Cordy Glenn, OT/OG, Georgia

This is a great pick by the Bills. Look out for them, they are silently building a good team.

42. Miami Dolphins – Jonathan Martin, OT, Stanford

Phenomenal pick here by the Dolphins. Just like the Bills before them, they grab an offensive lineman who has first-round talent.

43. New York Jets – Stephen Hill, WR, Georgia Tech

This is a solid pick by the Jets. Hill is a bit of a project receiver, but is very talented.

44. Kansas City Chiefs – Jeff Allen, OT, Illinois

This is a big reach.

45. Chicago Bears – Alshon Jeffery, WR, South Carolina

A solid pick by the Bears. Alshon was a great weapon for South Carolina, and his productivity speaks for itself.

46. Philadelphia Eagles – Mychal Kendricks, ILB, California

…

And then Weller went to a concert

Greatest. Thing. Ever.

I’m crying right now. Real tears. Of laughter….

Check it out after the jump.

Shaka Smart

All of you know that it has been a long time since either Bryan or I posted anything, but this couldn’t go unposted. I can’t say that this is necessarily and indicator that Bryan and I will be blogging regularly again, but this site started because we wanted somewhere to write down our thoughts on different things in the sports world, so that’s what I’m using it for now. If you couldn’t tell by the title, this post is about the Virginia Commonwealth men’s basketball coach, Shaka Smart.

All Good Things Must Come To An End

This is my formal retirement from the internet blog world.  I just don’t have the time or will anymore.  I’m going to leave the site up because Weller wants me to, but I won’t be using it.

Thanks for all the people who have come by in the past two years, it’s been a lot of fun and I’ve met some interesting characters.  Maybe one day I’ll have the time again.

Also, anyone looking for the explanation for the crazy Week 10 Blogpoll, that’s one is on Weller and he’ll have to do it.  I haven’t even seen it yet.

-Bryan

Growing Hate – Living in SEC Country

For those of you that don’t know I moved to Knoxville just over a year-and-a-half ago. I made this move because I’m a Tennessee Vols fan. I grew up watching Tennessee football, and have bled Orange since the day I was born in January of 1988. Growing up I quickly developed a deep-seeded hatred for the florida gators. I got mad, and expressed dislike toward other teams when we faced them, but it was nothing compared to the blood-boiling levels of hatred I embodied and held in reserve just for florida.

It didn’t matter if we won or if we lost, if it was close or if it was a blowout, no matter what I despised everything about the university of florida and the town of gainesville. I always recognized that from a historical perspective Tennessee was a bigger rival with Alabama, but I just couldn’t get myself to churn up that same, raw dislike that’s there for florida.

In my lifetime Tennessee and Alabama have never been good at the same time. Since 1995 there have only been five game between the two schools that were decided by a touchdown or less, and we won three of those. In that same time period the biggest win we’ve had over florida was by 14 points in 2003, and the second biggest win was by just three points in 1998.

Cheerleading

Not a sport.

I have gotten into this debate multiple times in life, and was reminded of it this evening when eating at Cici’s Pizza and there was a table next to us full of girls and guys who appeared to be on some sort of athletic team together. I could easily guess this much as I had grown up being a member of countless sports teams and with them all being in athletic attire I figured it was a safe to assume that they had just gotten out of practice and decided to all go out to eat together. I did struggle at first though, trying to guess in my mind what kind of team they were on. They were much too old to be in some sort of little kid’s coed league (soccer, baseball, etc) where the boys and girls play with and against one another, so my next thought was track. Track was “my sport” in high school and I just didn’t get the track vibe from this group.

When you believe in things that you don’t understand…

“Then you suffer; superstition ain’t the way.”

This post isn’t about “ladders bout’ to fall, thirteen month old baby, broke the lookin’ glass seven years of bad luck, the good things in your past” nor does it have to do with Stevie Wonder in any way whatsoever. It is however about superstition. To be more specific, superstition in sports. There are a lot of sports superstitions. Some tennis players avoid stepping on the court lines when changing sides. A lot of athletes put on the left (or right) shoe first every single time. Some change shoes in the middle of a game if they aren’t playing well. Not shaving when on a winning streak. Many professional bowlers feel they must wear the same outfit for an entire tournament (without washing it) no matter how long the tourney may be. Basketball players take a certain number of dribbles and have a pattern they do with the ball before free throws; volleyball players are similar when they serve. Tiger wearing red on Sundays. Rally caps, rally monkeys, not talking to pitchers during a perfect game, not talking to goalies during a shut out. Jordan always wearing UNC shorts under his actual uniform shorts. Gretzky always tucking one side of his jersey into his pants. Heck, John Henderson get hit in the face by a team trainer before every game until his mouth bleeds. There are tons and tons of them.

The athletes say it helps or hurts your luck, it’s a jinx or a curse, it gives you bad (or good) mojo, juju or karma. But is there any truth behind it?

Worthless

I just read the most worthless article I have ever read from ESPN.com and I am not happy that this is something considered news worthy. The cheater, tom brady, decided on a name for his recently born baby… and guess who couldn’t care less. That would be me. This has nothing to do with sports and ESPN shouldn’t be writing worthless crap like this and have it infecting their usually stellar website. This is just garbage. I wrote earlier this week about the Tiger Woods stuff that has been going on and how much I just don’t care, and how much it irks me to have sports-media reporting as much on athlete’s personal lives as they do with things that are actually going on in the field of play. Now tom brady decides on a name for his stupid kid and it gets a whole article written about it? Give me a freaking break.

Bandwagons

I know Bryan said that I would be writing a post about the Olympics today, but he must not have gotten my memo. Either way, I only have a few opinions about the Olympics right now anyhow and they can all be summed up rather quickly. Michael Phelps is amazing, China has rigged the games because there is now way that they should have that many gold medals, Germany got destroyed by the “Redeem Team” and Usain Bolt must be on steroids or some other performance enhancer. When the games are finished I’m sure I will have more in depth analysis of how everything went.

So instead of writing about the Olympics, I will be writing, as the title suggests, about bandwagons and fans that jump onto them. I felt the need to write a post about this because I know that most everyone has their own separate views on what makes somebody a “bandwagoner” and what doesn’t and I have had a few conversations recently in which the topic was discussed. Bryan and I are also kicking around the idea of writing about how we each became fans of our respective teams, and I believe that this would be a good way to open the door to those posts.

Originally I was going to write this post by listing what people commonly think makes somebody a “bandwagon” fan or a “true” fan and then breaking down what I agreed and disagreed with on each one. However there are so many views out there that it would take a very long time for me to cover them all and I’m afraid that I’d accidentally miss an important one. So instead I will simply lay out what I believe makes somebody exempt from being a “bandwagon” fan.

Let me start by saying that in my opinion there are four ways that a person can not be a “bandwagon” fan, and it can be any one of the four. I’d also like to point out that in my opinion, just because you aren’t a “bandwagon” fan doesn’t mean that you are a “true” fan. There is an area in between. To be a true fan, you should at the very least always know when your team’s next game is, know how they did in their last game, be able to name their better known players, and just follow the team in general, and that’s at the VERY least. Anyway, moving on to what excludes someone from the dreaded accusation of being a “bandwagon” fan. Here are my four ways:

1. Local Fan – This is the most obvious, and most commonly accepted way to justify your reasoning for not being a “bandwagon” fan. This is when a fan is cheering for the team that is in their city, and if they don’t have a team that’s in their city then it’s the team that’s in their state. Now this one gets sticky in some circumstances. For instance, there are times when someone lives in a state that has a team but they are near the border of a state, and actually live closer to a team in a different state. I don’t know where I stand on this, because some say you should still cheer for the team in  your state while other say it makes more sense to cheer for the team you live closest to. Neither view really bothers me. Then there are people who live in places like Wyoming, where there are no major professional sports teams. Some say that the should still cheer for a team in their region so that it’s a team nearby, but I don’t see why, unless they want to because they have no ties to that team.

2. Personal Ties – This is another commonly accepted way of being a fan; when a personal has a friend or family member that has ties to the team. For example, my best friend has a cousin who played for the Titans, so my friend was a fan of the Titans, and then when his cousin went to the Buccaneers, he changed to being a fan of the Buccaneers. This makes perfect sense to me. He is simply supporting his cousin in what he does.  Another example of this is one that relates to both Bryan and myself. This is when you are raised to be a fan of a team. Both of our fathers and his mother went to Tennessee, and though he grew up in Missouri and I grew up in Kansas, we are both huge Tennessee fans despite the fact that it isn’t the closest college to us. Thus, our ties to Tennessee are through are parents and extended family. It wasn’t my decision to move to Kansas, so I don’t think I should be forced to be a Jayhawk fan because of it, and should have the liberty to be the fan of the team that my dad brought me up to be a fan of.

3. Naive Selection – This reason isn’t as commonly accepted, but it’s still legit in my book. This is when someone (usually a little kid) just decides that they like a team for one reason or another and they just stick with that team. I feel that as long as this person sticks with this team and doesn’t switch teams when they get older and/or more knowledgeable and they don’t stop cheering for them when they get bad then this is a legit reason to be a fan of a team. My best example of this is Bryan, who despite growing up near St. Louis has been a life long Braves fan. He got a Braves hat when he was little, so he started cheering for them and has been a fan ever since. Bryan has never wavered  on  being a fan of the Braves and to this day is one of the most dedicated fans I know. Though I don’t think this is only acceptable with kids, there are rare occasions when this works with older people as well. A cousin of mine on the other side of my family who doesn’t really follow sports that closely decided that she was an Oklahoma Sooner fan, none of us really know why this is, but she has on OU license plate, and says she cheers for them, so I don’t question it. I definitely wouldn’t consider her a “true” fan like I discussed above, but I also don’t think she’s a “bandwagon” fan.

4. Evolution – Now this is probably going to be my most controversial reason and is still somewhat of a question mark in my own head, but the more I think about it the more I think I accept it. This is when a person starts out as a “bandwagon” fan but evolves out of it. By this I mean that the stick with the team long enough and become a consistent enough fan of the team to no longer be considered a “bandwagon” fan. I can’t come up with any specific examples for this one, but say somebody started being a fan of the Chicago Bulls back in the ’90s when they had Michael Jordan and were dominant, but then this person stuck with the team even after Michael was gone, and are still sticking with them even though they are no longer any good. I think that after an extended period of time after the team has started to decline, I don’t know what the specific period of time is, but I do think it can happen, and that it can become legit.

As always, please feel free to leave a comment letting me know what you think of my opinions and what your own personal views are on the topic.

Out of Town Again

I’m headed out of town again until Sunday.  Weller will be taking care of you (yes, he’s still alive).  He hasn’t been around much lately and last night the government finally listened to my letters and cut the power to Lawrence.  Enjoy the rest of your weeks.