12 comments MMQB Review: The Most Shocking and Interesting NFL Draft This Year

I can't lie. I think I enjoy going with the over-dramatic titles for MMQB. It all started a few weeks ago with two "trades of the year" back-to-back with McNabb going to Washington and Santonio Holmes going to the Jets. Now that the three day NFL Draft is over, and as expected ratings were actually up, Peter King is going to give us some tidbits, and perhaps nuggets, about the draft. It's the time we all look forward to. Peter gets to fawn over the teams he thinks did well, while I mock him and Peter gets to tell us which teams he think doesn't think did so well, while I mock him. He promised on Twitter he would have many thoughts in this MMQB on the draft and he hasn't let us down. Enough exposition, let's get to Peter's thoughts about the dumb and deft moves in the NFL Draft.

My favorite draft weekend story: The Man Who Said No to the NFL.

My least favorite draft story of the weekend: The Player Who Decides To Use His Degree and Make Good Money Working A Real Job Rather Than Holding On To an Outside Shot He Makes an NFL Team As an Undrafted Free Agent. I am a jerk, I don't need feel-good stories.

I can see the justification for this. A college football player has gotten a free ride to get an education and realizes he has a better shot at earning money in the real world rather than trying to catch on with an NFL team...while having no idea where he will eventually end up, if anywhere.

SEATTLE: Ever have one of those Dream Drafts that falls just right? The Seahawks did.

CLEVELAND: If you love the Colt McCoy pick, Browns fans, send a thank-you note this morning to GM Thomas Dimitroff, in care of the Atlanta Falcons.

CAROLINA: How does Jimmy Clausen fall to pick 48? The Panthers don't know, and they don't care.

Feel the drama of the NFL draft...or at least Peter wants us to.

The Chiefs are going to take either Tennessee safety Eric Berry or Oklahoma State tackle Russell Okung. Carroll and Schneider want Okung. They've heard the Chiefs could go either way.

How tense is this? The Seahawks could either land the left tackle they want at #6 or have to settle for the potential second or third best defensive player in the draft! It's like Sophie's Choice, this can't be happening! If they can't get Okung they will have to wait all the way until pick #14 to try and get a quality left tackle. It's a nightmare in the form of reality!

Tick, tick, tick. Minutes go by, three or four of them, and the call comes into the Seahawks: It's Berry in K.C.

I could have gone without the "tick, tick, tick," but thanks Peter.

Without Okung, they'd have had to reach for a lower-rated tackle either here or with their other first-round pick. "If we don't get the tackle there,'' Schneider said later, "we'd be pressing, and maybe we'd have to make some decisions for the short-term we really don't want to.''

I know they want Okung, but is it really that big of a deal to have to try and get Bulaga, Anthony Davis, Brown, or any of the other left tackles later in the draft? Sure, it is a downgrade at the left tackle position, but it's not like Eric Berry looks like a shitty player, so it would be an upgrade at the safety position. The Seahawks also could have traded that pick for a left tackle (Peter seems to think Jared Gaither is available). I know it would suck, but they also had the #14 pick, so that softens the blow a little bit. Still, great draft for the Seahawks. Maybe Peter will visit the upper Northwest sometime this year now.

After the sixth pick, Seattle likes Jimmy Clausen the quarterback and C.J. Spiller the running back. But the 'Hawks needed Earl Thomas the safety. Big position of need, a quarterback for the secondary.

My point exactly about why losing Okung would suck but gaining a quarterback in the secondary in Eric Berry wouldn't be terrible. It didn't happen, I just can't handle the fake drama. I hope everyone can remember these are all rookie players and we don't know if they will be any good or not, so it is not like we know exactly how good and bad each player will be.

I'd seen Hasselbeck Thursday afternoon and told him I'd given Seattle Clausen at number 14 in my mock draft, and who knows, they loved him and they just might do it. "Whoa,'' he said. "Then I'm an ostrich. I've had my head in the sand. That would, uh, surprise me.''

And then Hasselbeck turned around to leave, but he turned too quickly and his back gave out on him, leaving him a crumpled mass of human body in pain on the floor as Peter King stood over him with donut crumbs and a few drops of coffee falling from Peter's mouth taunting Hasselbeck that he just couldn't get up on his own.

Let's say the Seahawks taking another quarterback would not have incredibly surprised me given the state of Hasselbeck's body.

Thanks God for Carolina then.

Thanks God for editors.

So Clausen goes 48. Now Schneider's got to play GM. Far and away the best guy on their board now is Tate. But the calls start coming in. Lots of interesting players on the board, and lots of teams trying to come up. Schneider's got an offer he likes a lot. If he'd go down a handful of spots (fewer than 15), into the upper third round, he could add two fifth-round picks. And if Tate had lasted this long, who's to say he wouldn't last an hour longer?

Um, me. I wanted the Panthers to take Tate at #48 instead of Clausen. They had a great need for a quality wide receiver than a quarterback.

As far as the Seahawks being able to wait and get Tate, I don't see Tate falling below New England at #60 or the Rams at #65. That's just my opinion, but the Seahawks drafted intelligently here.

Now the Leon Washington story.

"The Jets,'' said Schneider, "had several teams interested in him. They were gracious enough to let our medical people interact with theirs. When you're talking about a pick in the fifth round, and a player like Leon Washington,

Anytime you can get a player like Washington for a 5th round pick, I think that is a good trade, but I still have to believe Washington was pretty overrated in New York. He was a good player, but he wasn't quite the guy at the end of the year he was projected to be at the beginning of the year. That being said, the Seahawks may actually use him better than the Jets did.

So essentially, here are the two scenarios that Seattle faced, with and without the man who bears a slight resemblance to Jesus Christ:

Tim Tebow?

WITH A TRADE FOR WHITEHURST -- Seattle enters the season with Hasselbeck and Whitehurst the quarterbacks and multiple threat Tate added to a decent stable of wideouts ... but without a third-round pick in 2011.

WITHOUT A TRADE FOR WHITEHURST -- Seattle enters the season with Hasselbeck and Clausen at quarterback. But no Tate. And with the entire 2011 draft intact.

Tough call. This team would love to have Clausen for the long haul. Schneider believes in him. But my gut feeling is they'd rather have the Whitehurst/Tate combo.

Is this the gut feeling Peter has because the Seahawks actually chose this option over keeping their 3rd round pick and staying where they were early in the 2nd round? I know the Seahawks can't predict the future, but this draft couldn't have gone too much better for them, so I have a gut feeling since they chose to trade the 3rd round pick and swap 2nd round picks and it worked really well, they would rather have the Whitehurst/Tate combo.

He's right. Jimmy Clausen with the 48th pick isn't in the same league with some of the great steals of all time (I don't think) but I think it'll end up the biggest shock of this draft when we look at it 10 years from now.

The shock being that the Panthers needed a wide receiver and a defensive tackle more than they needed Clausen at this point in the draft and it is shocking they didn't address those needs with this pick? The shock about Clausen's fall reminds me a bit of Brian Brohm's fall 3 years ago to Green Bay...and where the hell is he now? (Buffalo, after he got beat out by a 7th round pick for the backup job to Aaron Rodgers)

Maybe he's not the kind of guy you want to go on vacation with. Maybe he is full of himself. But what's Jay Cutler? Philip Rivers?

(Throws up in mouth)

In doing pre-draft research, not that he thought he'd have a chance to get Clausen, Fox talked to Charlie Weis, his good friend and the former Irish coach. Weis and Fox are close. Fox is sure Weis wouldn't lie to him.

Yeah, its not like Weis coaches in the NFL right now and has a reason to pump up his own players to another team and lie a little. Weis isn't a coach in the NFL right now or anything. Wait...nevermind.

The GM, Marty Hurney, said he was so excited awaiting the pick that he was shaking.

How ironic, I was shaking a little bit when he traded next year's 2nd round pick for a converted college quarterback in the 3rd round.

Sicko got a scholarship to play football at New Hampshire. But he always thought he was at college to get an education, then to play football. He majored in History with a minor in Political Science. He's due to be graduated on time May 22, and he's considering returning to school to finish a double-major (taking more poli-sci courses), or going for a Master's in History, and then, if all goes well, maybe a Ph.D. in History.

Here is the shocking story of a person choosing to use his degree he got for free by playing football. It is shocking and astounding.

So with the final few picks winding down, Sicko told his family the truth: If he didn't get drafted, he wanted to go back to college full-time and see what direction the road took him.

He said he had no bitterness, no anger at teams for not picking him. But when he thought about a football life on the edge of a roster -- possibly an itinerant life of an undrafted free-agent, working out day after day to try to get a shot in an NFL camp, or moving from one NFL practice squad to another, or possibly being on an active roster -- it didn't jibe with the life he wanted to live.

This makes sense. I know a lot of players don't think of it this way, but an undrafted free agent doesn't have a great chance of making an NFL roster. He could go to training camp, get cut and go back to school, but what is the problem with making a decision now? Football gave him a free ride to college and as interesting of a prospect that he may be, he doesn't have a great chance of sticking with a team. He got a free ride to college for playing football. That's not a bad deal.

"It was tough, telling NFL teams I didn't want to be in their camps,'' he said. "But it was the right thing.''

It felt logical to ask about why a mature kid like him wouldn't want to go to a camp, just to challenge himself and see if he could do it. Wouldn't he, for the rest of his life, question his decision? Wouldn't he wake up one morning 30 years from now feeling like some Moonlight Graham, a guy who'd give anything to go back for just one chance, to see if he was really good enough? He just didn't think he would ever feel that way.

I personally would have tried to make it in football and then gone back to school, because I would have wanted to know if I could compete or not at the NFL level. That's just me. The difference in being drafted in the 7th round and not being drafted isn't that great anyway, so it wouldn't have mattered to me if I got drafted or not.

"Let's get through the draft and we'll evaluate all aspects of it, including talking to our clubs and seeing what worked and what has not. We'd like to wait until we have concluded with the entire event, but to see the kind of extraordinary increase in viewership I think does reinforce the idea that we can put the draft on a bigger platform, and that's great for everyone."

-- NFL commissioner Roger Goodell to SI's Richard Deitsch for a story on SI.com Friday night, talking about the future of the prime-time NFL draft. Sure sounds to me like the draft -- the first round had a 32 percent increase in ratings over last year's first round -- will stay on a weekday night in 2011.

I knew the draft was going to have better ratings on Thursday night. I still don't like it, but I do have to admit breaking up the 1st, 2nd, 3rd rounds like that made the draft feel a little bit less interminable each day. Sometimes the draft did seem to last forever on a Saturday or Sunday. Of course, if I were still in college it would annoy me because I couldn't sit down with my friends and watch the whole thing in one weekend sitting. So I don't like having the draft go over 3 days, but I don't hate it.

Not that there's going to be much pressure on Dez Bryant in Dallas, already, but the history of the receivers Dallas used first-round picks to acquire in the last decade is beyond dismal.

The Cowboys long searched for a franchise receiver to replace Galloway and thought Williams was the one -- but Miles Austin emerged as Tony Romo's favorite target in 2009, and now Bryant will surely get the chance to be the complementary receiver to Austin. Williams is likely to be buried on the bench and could eventually be released, if not this year then next.

I guess the rule we have learned here is to never trade for a guy who was drafted by Matt Millen. Dez Bryant was a good pick for the Cowboys and he wouldn't have to do much to be better than Roy Williams has been.

1. I think these are my quick-hit thoughts of 32 teams on draft weekend. Though I am loathe to give grades, I have a few observations on each team, particularly the ones I didn't cover much in the top of this column:

While Peter loathes to give grades, I will be very happy to get grades to each team's draft later this week. So (don't) look forward to that. Just to be clear, giving grades out this early is completely pointless, but I do it anyway.

• Baltimore. Loved what Ozzie Newsome and Eric DeCosta did. I thought they'd stay in the first round and steal Dan Williams at 24, but they dealt down and did better. No team got the impact between 43 and 114 that the Ravens did, though the Pats might argue.

Sergio Kindle should eventually add some rush, and was a steal at 43. The real key could be Terrence Cody at 57. Now, people will say, "Why are you taking this fat guy with the weight problem?'' Two things here. Newsome went to Alabama. He's a legend there. He loves picking Alabama players, and he gets the inside dope on them. He knows Cody can be whipped into shape.

Right, Terence Cody can be whipped into shape, which is exactly why Nick Saban wasn't able to get Cody in shape while he was the head coach at Alabama. I don't mean to be cynical, but I don't know if Cody can get in shape while he is getting paid in the NFL if he couldn't do it while he was in college. Not a terrible pick, but if anyone on the Ravens staff whips Cody into shape, they will be the first to do so.

• Buffalo. I'm a little skeptical of C.J. Spiller's ability to lug the rock 300 times a year, because he never did it in four years at Clemson. Maybe he'll be the kind of Felix Jones-ish all-purpose back that, in touching it 12 to 15 times a game, can have four-wins-a-season impact. But it's doubtful he can carry it as much as the fans will scream for him to.

I always enjoy seeing how the media picks and chooses the players they believe in coming out of the NFL Draft. (Get ready for a Tebow comparison and some rambling) Peter is skeptical of C.J. Spiller being able to carry the ball 300 times a year (even though he won't have to because of Fred Jackson and Marshawn Lynch, but that's another story), but he believes Bradford, McCoy, and Tebow can all play in the NFL taking snaps under center even though they didn't do it for nearly their entire college career. I know one is a physical issue and the other is a mental issue, but I see them the same in many ways. The idea of moving a quarterback from mostly taking a snap out of the shotgun to taking a snap from under center is a mental AND physical issue.

I just find it interesting there isn't too much concern from Peter about drafting quarterbacks in the 1st round who don't take snaps under center or run an offense that is like a NFL offense in college, but the fact Spiller hasn't ever carried the ball 300 times in a season is a knock against him in the eyes of Peter King. It doesn't necessarily mean he can't do it, he just hasn't. He is 5'11" and weighs 196 pounds, so he has the build to carry the ball a lot. Maybe Spiller can't, but carrying the ball 300 times in a college season (of 14 games) is 21.5 carries per game, which is a lot, especially for a guy who doesn't need the ball that much to score touchdowns.

He was also sharing carries with James Davis for three years. Let's remember that. I am just saying for me, the issue of a quarterback changing how he takes the snap from the center seems to be an adjustment, much like a running back changing his body shape to absorb more punishment and carry the ball more. I am rambling now.

• Carolina. I didn't like the trade for Armanti Edwards; the 89th pick in the draft is a nice place to get a position-change prospect, but trading potentially the 40th or 45th pick in 2011 for him?

It could also potentially be the 33rd pick or the 60th pick as well. It is incredibly stupid to try and project exactly what the pick will be at this point just to try and prove a point. It is a bit high for a guy changing positions, but isn't a 3rd round pick in the 2010 draft nearly equivalent to a 2nd round pick in 2011...or something like that?

• Denver. I'll riff on the Broncos tomorrow in my Tuesday mailbag column.

Come on. Wouldn't you expect Tim Tebow to get an entire mailbag? Hell, we are lucky Peter just didn't turn the entire MMQB into a discussion of Tim Tebow. I hope we are all ready for the Tebow era of the NFL. It starts with Peter King not being able to sum up his feelings on the drafting of Tebow by Denver in his MMQB, so he requires an entire mailbag to get his feelings on this choice out. I am afraid our long national nightmare has begun.

• Jacksonville. A few things in the wake of my Thursday night conversation with well-respected GM Gene Smith of the Jags, after he made a pick I thought was the reach of the draft, defensive tackle Tyson Alualu of Cal with the 10th pick.

I don't hate the player, I hate the slot the player was picked in. I am going to pull a Peter King and save my venom for my draft grade post that no one really cares about reading.

And though he didn't say it, I could tell he felt this way: if he watches every snap of 25 games that Alualu played in the last two years, an he gets criticized for reaching for him, just who is doing the criticizing? People -- other than the Mayocks and Kipers, I'm assuming -- who might have seen a highlight or two, and have gotten everything they know about the draft from personnel people or coaches they talk to at this time of year. That resonated with me all weekend.

That's an excellent point. Another excellent point is that no matter how much they love Alualu, they could have gotten him later in the draft. Taking him at that point was stupid. I saw no mock draft that had him going in Top 20 and it is fine to love him and say you watched every snap he played over the last two years, but the bottom line is that Jacksonville could have either (a) gotten more draft picks or (b) saved money by trading back. I can love Golden Tate all I want, but just because I like him doesn't mean I take him in the Top 20 when there isn't competition for him at that point.

Get a 3rd round pick to move back 8 spots or something. Anything.

Smith deserves a light rap on the wrist for not getting a little something by trading down. But I'll wait 'til midseason, until we all see how disruptive (or not) Alualu is after a career at every position on the defensive line with Cal.

It's not going to change my mind. If Alualu goes to the Hall of Fame, it still stands to reason the Jaguars could have/should have gotten something to move back. Peter is missing the point. No one has a problem with the pick, it is when the pick was taken and the Jags missed a chance to get more draft picks AND get the guy they wanted. It's a form of reasonable greediness.

• New England. The Patriots again got great volume, and even set themselves as the power brokers of the 2011 draft; they already had the Raiders' 2011 first-rounder, then pilfered the Panthers' second-round pick next year by dealing them the 89th pick in this draft -- way at the end of the third round.

I am sure someday the Patriots fans would like for the team to actually draft players and not trade back all the time. That being said, I can't really argue with the results.

• New York Giants. Great story by Ralph Vacchiano in Sunday's New York Daily News about the desire of top pick Jason Pierre-Paul, echoing the drive I've heard he has. He is quick, and a great athlete. Question: How did he only get six sacks in 2010? Another question: Worried about the fact he's played only one year of college football at a high level after being at two JCs?

I was really high on Pierre-Paul before the draft, but I have been thinking a little bit about him. I hope he isn't one of those guys who looks like an athlete, but only has one good year in college and gets drafted high. George Selvie was the guy everyone talked about on the defensive line until this year and there wasn't much talk about Pierre-Paul prior to this year.

By the way, I got an email from GM Mike Tannenbaum during the week. Remember last week's column, when I ran the quote from National Football Post's Mike Lombardi about no one in the organization taking responsibility for the drafting of Vernon Gholston? Tannenbaum said, essentially, that he's never hidden from the Gholston pick, takes full responsibility, and if there's some blame to take, give it to him. Big of him.

There is a vote of confidence for Gholston. It's very big of Tannenbaum to publicly call Gholston a mistake, but I feel like he is sort of calling out his own player publicly, which isn't really big of him.

• San Diego. I thought A.J. Smith paid too much (two picks in the top 40) for a productive but not explosive running back, Ryan Mathews.

What is the problem with a non-explosive, productive running back? Would a team rather have an explosive player who isn't productive as they would like (Reggie Bush)? I guess I always thought a player was considered good if he was productive, maybe I was wrong.

•Tampa Bay. Bucs discussion in my Tuesday column. Sorry for the delay.

What? That's going to cut into our Tebow-time. Unacceptable.

• Washington.Trent Williams, the left tackle, in the first round, and Donovan McNabb in the second. Not very complicated. If either one of those guys fail, the Redskins will struggle to be a .500 team.

I like how the genius Mike Shanahan didn't take the best left tackle in the draft in Russell Okung because he liked Williams better. He's had success drafting left tackles, but this is one of the reasons I doubt Shanahan sometimes. I think he tries to outsmart everyone.

Now for my normal 10th Thing I Think.

Peter just skipped over "things he thinks" #2-#9.

c. The best TV on TV right now is when Andrew Bernard and Dwight Schrute face off.

Where would we all be without Peter's thoughts on "The Office?" I watch the show every week and I am not sure I even know what he is talking about here.

e. Coffeenerdness: Bus Stop Espresso, in Seattle's Green Lake neighborhood, might be the funkiest espresso bar I've been in.

What the hell is a "funky" espresso bar? Do they have P-Funk or Kool and the Gang playing throughout the coffee house or something? Compared to the boring scenery that every Starbucks presents, nearly every other coffee house is funky.

Recommended. Good stuff. You'll need to ask for it hot, but it's a very good plain latte.

I look forward to going to a coffee house where I have to ask for my coffee hot. It sounds like they really have their shit together when a customer has to ask for hot coffee specifically.

f. Thanks for dinner, Gary Wright. Great catching up with you. Great town you've got out there in Seattle.

Isn't it a better idea to fax, text, email or call Gary Wright to tell him this? Of all the ways to send a message, sending that message in a football column read by thousands of people is the least personal...and it is also annoying for the readers to have to wade through.

I think the Tuesday mailbag is going to be very Tebow-licious.

2 comments Bert Blyleven L-O-V-E-S Retaliation Pitches

I want to start the day off being a homer and showing how Peter King is wrong. He wrote this in his Day 1 NFL Draft recap. I almost covered the whole thing, but thought I would hold off.

5. CAROLINA -- I think Carolina simply has to start managing its draft choices better. That's a story for another day; dealing a 2010 first-rounder to the Niners last year for Everette Brown was a reach.

This is not true. In the 2nd round last year, Everette Brown was a good pick. He was projected to go in the 1st round by many mock drafts. The price of a 1st round pick seemed high at the time, but they wanted a pass-rusher who was potentially elite and they had to pay for him in order to move up in the draft.

See?

And again.

Peter doesn't have to like the pick from last year or the trade up, but Brown was in no way a reach. A 2009 2nd round pick is worth a 2010 1st round pick according to most standards (measurements) I read about this type stuff. So, Peter is incredibly incorrect about this.

But tonight, when the Panthers' first pick (48th overall) comes up in the middle of the second round, they should hope either Clausen keeps slipping (he won't) or that Chris Cook, the underrated Virginia corner, is still there.

Clausen did slip. Thanks for playing though Peter. It's weird that Peter thinks a team which currently has 18 of 22 starters that were drafted by the Panthers needs to work on their draft strategy. Maybe it works out, maybe it doesn't, but they have a plan and it has worked out fairly well for them so far. Homerism done, onto the post for the day.

I wanted to put up a quick post for this Saturday. I almost did a summary of the first 3 rounds of the NFL draft but I wanted to wait until the entire draft was over. I will probably end up talking about the draft a lot next week (or maybe not), so I thought I would do a quick article written by my great friend Bert Blyleven. This week he isn't talking about "gamers," he is talking about why he wants baseball players to get hit in the head with a baseball.

Last week, Dodgers pitcher Vicente Padilla hit Giants outfielder Aaron Rowand in the head with a pitch. Rowand suffered three fractures in his face and was sent to the disabled list.

But I thought Rowand was a "gamer" and didn't mind hurting himself running into a fence? I thought he was so tough, didn't he chase down a fly ball and run into the fence, thereby breaking his nose giving him this reputation? I thought he would love the opportunity to stop a baseball thrown by a pitcher with his face to show what a gamer he is? I guess not.

Earlier in spring training, Mariners pitcher Cliff Lee threw the ball over the head of Diamondbacks catcher Chris Snyder. Lee was able to convince MLB executives that the pitch was not intentional, and a five-game suspension was rescinded.

This is what I find stupid about the MLB suspension system for throwing a baseball at a player. How the hell do we know if it was intentional or not? How the hell can they measure intent? Maybe the pitcher just threw the ball really poorly and it hit the batter hard, but this looked intentional. Maybe another pitcher in another situation threw the ball intentionally at the batter and it went straight into the dirt or way behind the batter to where he was never in danger. One player may get thrown out of the game or suspended, even though it wasn't intentional, while the other player will just continue pitching.

My point is that there isn't a way to measure intent and I don't think it is right to judge whether a pitcher had intent or not based on the outcome of the pitch. For example, if a pitch is thrown and accidentally hits a batter and gives him a concussion, the pitcher will most likely be suspended, but if a pitcher throws a pitch and it is intentional and misses the batter completely then he probably won't be suspended...yet his intent was to hit the batter. Judging intent and the result of the batter being hit when it comes to suspensions is incredibly hard to do, but I feel like MLB tries to do this. The Cliff Lee situation is a good example. I feel like MLB judged intent here and I don't know if I like that.

In neither case did the offending pitcher, or his team, receive any kind of payback. And whether the acts were intentional or not, I have to say that this is wrong.

I am a big fan of hitting an opposing team's batter when your team's batter got hit by an intentional pitch. Personally, if the other team feels the act was not intentional, I see no need for payback, but apparently Bert disagrees. I think one team hitting the opposing team's batter for an accidental hit-by-pitch will cause some pitchers to quit pitching inside because they don't want their batters to be hit-by-a-pitch. I would rather retaliation occur when the pitch thrown was seen to be intentional...but again, it is tough to judge intent.

A pitcher has to stick up for his teammates, and he can’t be afraid to pitch inside.

I am arguing a pitcher will be afraid to pitch inside for fear of two things. One, he is afraid he will be suspended, and two, he is afraid one of his own teammates will get hit. I am not a MLB player, but I am assuming they don't actually enjoy getting hit by a baseball being thrown at them. So I say "no" to retaliation for non-intentional pitches thrown. I find no problem with a team judging for itself whether the pitch was intentional or not, but I don't think MLB should judge intent when suspending players. I enjoy double standards like that.

I learned a lot about intimidation and pitching inside early in my career when I had the chance to sit down and talk with Don Drysdale.

And now comes the part where Bert talks/brags about all the things he did in relation to this topic during his career.

I learned a lot about intimidation and pitching inside early in my career when I had the chance to sit down and talk with Don Drysdale.

Did he show Bert how to cheat by throwing a spitball?

I can't believe Don Drysdale cheated during his career! Hurry, someone take him out of the Hall of Fame. Quickly. Huge.

Drysdale told me that his first objective was to win the ballgame,

I can see Bert Blyleven furiously writing down notes...jotting down "first, try to win the game," not realizing if he had done more of this, stodgy old-shithead Hall of Fame voters would have voted him into the Hall of Fame by now.

and his second objective was to intimidate the hitter. He would do that by pitching inside, even if it meant hitting a guy once in awhile.

That would never work in today's baseball. Players are worth too much money to teams and take offense to things too easily for pitchers to get away with pitching inside. I think pitching inside is part of the game of baseball. For example, many of these players who lean over the plate should get brushed-back every time they are at the plate, but it can't work that way.

The opposing team knew that they would always protect their players. Drysdale and Gibson were notorious for pitching inside. And if you hit one of their players, they would hit two of yours.

It's all fine to remember "the good old days" and things like that, but Drysdale and Gibson would not have pitched long enough to earn a win in today's baseball. If a pitcher throws at a batter twice in a game, then he will be tossed. If he hits the batter, then he will be suspended. Pitching inside should still be a part of the game and I think if this were more accepted there wouldn't be as many problems with suspensions from pitchers pitching inside.

It should be a part of the game. Every pitch that hits a batter isn't intentional and doesn't require retaliation, especially now that the batter for some reason believes he owns home plate and leans over the plate, taking away the inside part of the plate from the pitcher.

I hit 155 batters over the course of my career, the 17th most all-time. Some of those were on purpose.

I think that's great. The problem I see with this and I am not sure Bert realizes it. If every pitcher did what Bert thinks pitchers should do, which is hit an opposing player in retaliation for their own teammate being hit, then 155 of Bert's teammates would have taken pitches to the body because Bert wants to intimidate the hitter.

See the problem? Bert believes pitchers should retaliate, so his teammates are going to take the punishment that Bert caused by hitting an opposing player. Bert played most of his career in the American League, so you can see how Bert's teammates (except Tim Foley of course, because he is a gamer) would not like that Bert enjoys intimidating hitters...because they pay for his intimidation. This is assuming all batters who are hit later get retaliation of course.

One instance came when I was playing for Texas and we were in Kansas City. I was pitching a 6-0 shutout going into the ninth inning, when one of their relievers threw a ball over the head of my teammate Juan Beniquez. Juan had a good game, and they were letting him know they weren’t happy about it, I guess. Everyone in the ballpark knew there was a purpose behind that pitch.

I don't believe this story. Juan Beniquez actually had a good game?

Sid Hudson, my pitching coach, came down and said “we don’t want you to retaliate.” A minute later manager Frank Lucchesi comes over and says “we want you to get the shutout. We’ll take care of it later.” I didn’t say anything, but when I went out to take the mound, I hit the first batter, catcher Darrell Porter, in the ribs with a pitch.

I don't know if I would actually ignore my manager's advice and still hit a player in retaliation. That may just be me.

He yelled at me, I yelled at him, and that was the end of it. I still pitched the shutout,

The important thing to know here, and I am not sure Bert does know this, is that if each bench had received a warning after Juan Beniquez got hit then Bert would have been tossed from the game under today's rules. There would have been no shutout, no complete game for him, and he might have even got suspended. So while I respect his need to retaliate, it isn't always smart to do in today's MLB. Bert should be able to understand that if a pitcher was in a similar situation today, he wouldn't have hit the batter because the manager requested he did not and he wanted to complete the shutout.

but the most important part was that I had the respect of my teammates for sticking up for Juan.

Bert's teammates probably did have respect for him in this instance, but how many times did Bert hit an opposing player while trying to intimidate him and cause one of his own teammates to get hit? That's the price of playing, I realize this, but I feel like it is a valid question. Some batters may not want to get hit by a pitch simply because their pitcher wants to intimidate the opposing batter.

I think a lot has changed since back then and you don’t see as much of that from pitchers. A big reason is the suspensions.

I am glad he brings this up over halfway through his column on retaliation pitches, since this is a major reason why pitchers don't pitch inside anymore.

I didn’t get suspended for hitting Porter like I would today. Back then, the umps knew the game of baseball, and they let us take care of business.

Today's umpires apparently don't know the game of baseball according to Bert, though they know the players make millions and are valuable assets to their team, so having a baseball thrown at them is essentially (and this is crude) trying to destroy a valuable asset of a multi-million dollar company.

Padilla has that reputation, too, where he will start throwing at people out of the blue, drilling guys just for the heck of it.

Vincente Padilla is an asshole. I think everyone knows this. There is a difference in hitting players with a baseball and just being an asshole.

I think that is a reason the Rangers let him go last year, because the Rangers hitters were afraid that Padilla’s actions would cause them to suffer the retaliation.

Logically, even though he didn't aim for people's heads, wouldn't Bert's Twins, Angels, and Indians teammates have suffered the same retaliation for Bert's intimidation pitches? Maybe not, because hitting a player with a baseball was more accepted when Bert played.

After Padilla hit Rowand last week, the Giants didn’t retaliate. But I think they should have, and I think they just might later on, maybe when he’s at the plate.

I think the Giants should retaliate, I really do, but if a Giants pitcher retaliates then there will be suspensions and possibly a bench clearing scuffle which could lead to more suspensions. Another factor in this equation is that Rowand and Padilla play in the era of free agency when the guy you hit in retaliation could end up being your teammate next year. It's a different culture in today's baseball, and even though I would enjoy seeing pitcher's brushback hitters, the suspension and other factors sometimes doesn't make it worth it. That being said, the Giants should have hit a Dodgers player ASAP and suspensions usually only result in a starter missing maybe one start.

Only Lee knows for sure if it was intentional. I’m sure Snyder probably isn’t happy with Lee getting away without being punished. I think a hitter knows when it’s coming on purpose, and Snyder certainly thought it was.

This is the entire problem with MLB judging a player's intent. Lee threw TWO pitches that were up-and-in to Snyder, but it was judged as "unintentional" so he got off with no suspension, while another pitcher could drill a guy in the head and get thrown out of the game for it...and then get suspended. Judging intent is sort of a slippery slope to me.

The Diamondbacks and Mariners don’t play each other this season, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Snyder tries to get Lee back at some point down the line.

Is he going to break into Lee's house and try to steal his television set or something? Possibly frame him for a crime outside of a strip-club in Seattle? This is the type of retaliation I would like to see happen between players.

As for Padilla, he definitely has a track record, and someone will get him good at some point.

He will have deserved it. My hope is the pitcher who gets him doesn't get thrown out of the game, because Padilla definitely deserves to be hit with a pitch.

Also, this whole retaliation issue is another reason why I don't like the designated hitter and think pitchers should have to bat. That's a whole other issue though. I think if a pitcher can throw a pitch at a batter, he should have to bat himself. I know people like the DH and it isn't going away.

Sometimes things have to be done to protect your teammates. You’re not out there to make friends.

I agree. Players aren't out there to make friends, but I don't think EVERY pitch that hits a batter should require a retaliation pitch. The pitch that hit Rowand deserved a retaliation pitch. Today's game of baseball is a different sport from the one Bert played. The inside part of the plate is the batter's now and the batter takes offense to any pitch that is even close to his body. Major League Baseball now has rules that make it hard for pitchers to pitch inside for fear they will hit the batter, including suspensions.

I know pitchers want to protect their teammates, but times have changed and players do make friends with other players on the field.

You’re there to play the game hard and win ballgames.

Don't keep saying you have to win games Bert, you will never make the Hall of Fame at this rate.

Baseball isn’t a gentleman’s game. It’s got to be played hard.

And being a gamer. Gamers would throw pitches at an opposing team's batter without regard for that player's safety, the situation of the game, or whether that pitcher will get suspended for it or not.

Actually, didn't Bert say last week pitchers couldn't be gamers?

I don't like how baseball suspends pitchers and throws them out of games for retaliation, but I also don't think a pitcher should hit a batter in the head with a pitch. I think MLB tries to judge intent too often on pitches that hit batters and it is too hard to judge intent and it isn't right to suspend or not suspend a pitcher based on whether it looked like he was trying to throw the ball at the batter. One thing is for sure, the inside part of the plate is now the batter's and with the rules about throwing at batters, the age of free agency, and things like this make Bert's dream of retaliation for every hit batter is not realistic.

17 comments Jay Mariotti Hates Baseball and I Don't Like Him

Ok, so my mock draft started out well and then became a complete disaster. I know it is currently the middle of the NFL Draft, or at least the first day after the first day of the draft, so the NFL is on our minds, but let's talk a little baseball today. Once all the picks are in I feel like I can talk the NFL Draft a little bit more. Since it takes an entire 3 day weekend to get through the NFL Draft now, we have to wait to make decisions on how teams do. So the draft is broken up and I can't just give my impressions of the draft because it takes three damn days for the thing to end. Don't worry (though you aren't), I will give my impressions of the draft, I just like for it to end first.

Today, Jay Mariotti decides that he hates baseball and so he imagines problems for baseball that aren't exclusive to that sport.

First, I wanted to thank Joe Sheehan. Thank you. He has written an article that should shut up all the realignment talk in MLB that has pervaded the world of late. I saw the article and thought I was going to have to take on Sheehan since I assumed he (like many others) would be in favor of realignment, but fortunately he has written beautifully and correctly against realignment. Not to pat myself on the back, but what he says sounds a little similar to what I wrote last week.

What I'm describing is what the MLB playoff picture would look like if baseball was like the NFL, with 16 games in a season and 12 postseason berths. (The NFL advanced six teams per conference in a three-division structure with 28, then 30, teams from 1990 through 2002, before moving to the current four-division-per-conference setup.) Every team in baseball has played 13, 14 or 15 games, putting us at a comparable point to Week 16 of the NFL season, with two games left. And as is often the case in the NFL, there's little separation among them at this point.

I made the very nearly same point in my post last Tuesday about why realignment is stupid and the whining about the competitive balance of baseball being way off. It's simply not true.

From Selig's injection of the term into collective bargaining to the cries of media who have never grasped the economics of sports to the relentless praise of the NFL by its partners, competitive balance has been cited as one of pro football's biggest advantages over baseball. Every team has a chance to win in football, every season allows more teams to contend, no teams start the season without "hope and faith," and rarely are teams locked into postseason berths when camps break.

I wish I had written this exact article last Tuesday now. It's simply a case of small sample sizes making the NFL look a lot better than it truly should look in terms of competitive balance. If the NFL played 32 games, think of how far ahead the Saints, Cardinals, and Colts would have been from their nearest rival in their own division. They probably would have blown the nearest team away in the standings. That's three of the eight divisions that would have been blowouts.

That balance, however, is merely an illusion created by the structure of the two leagues. The NFL never has baseball's September, never sees half the league playing out the string over the final sixth of the schedule, because when you play 16 games, you simply cannot get that kind of separation.

This is absolutely true. It's boring to agree with writers, I realize this, so forgive me. It's a numbers game in the NFL though. There aren't enough games for the division races to get that wide open, like what happens in baseball. I don't see it as a fault of baseball, but more an advantage/disadvantage of the NFL 16 game schedule.

Here's the disadvantage of the NFL and it's "parity." One injury to a player or an ineffective player can effectively ruin an entire team's season. A three game losing streak can ruin a team's season. It's what makes the NFL exciting, but it also is a disadvantage in that the true "best" teams don't always make the playoffs every year. The NFL schedule also plays a big part in whether a team is successful or not, because a quality team with an easier schedule will make the playoffs (most likely) over a quality team with a tougher schedule. Why does one team get a tougher schedule? Because they dared to be a good team the year before or played a tougher AFC/NFC division than the team with the easier schedule because of how the division rotations work in the NFL scheduling.

I am not saying this is a terrible thing, but in the NFL a team has a smaller window to win so teams that start off well or start off poorly can have their season decided merely because of that. I am not saying this is all bad, I just wanted to show there is some downside to the NFL "parity," in that teams don't have much room for injury or failure. That also makes the NFL exciting.

Last year the Cincinnati Bengals outscored their opponents by just 14 points in total, but by winning three early games by a field goal each, two of them road games over divisional rivals, they set the stage for a 10-6 campaign and a division title. No one injury or brief stretch of good fortune can impact a baseball team's record in quite the same way.

Good teams prove themselves as good teams in MLB because they have longer to do so.

More teams do have a chance to compete in the NFL, but that's simply because "compete" has been defined as "stay around .500 for 14 games."

Burn!

It's not that one league's structure is better than the other. It's that the two aren't comparable in any meaningful way. MLB plays 10 times the games that the NFL does and has a postseason that is more exclusive by a third. MLB has significant in-season roster turnover, both from a minor-league system and via trading; the NFL has virtually none.

In a discussion on scheduling parity and overall competitive balance in each league, I don't think they are comparable because of the difference in schedules. I just don't believe a fair comparison can be done.

For too long now, MLB has tried to be like the NFL, emphasizing the postseason at the expense of the regular season while embracing the idea that every team should be competitive every year. It was a ridiculous notion in 1994, when MLB realigned and foisted a new round of postseason play on us, and it's a ridiculous notion now.

Somewhere people who favor every team being competitive every year are taking major offense to this statement. It would be nice to have every team be competitive, but it is also incredibly unrealistic. Pittsburgh and teams like that are such poorly run teams they have no chance at being competitive...and as long as the team is poorly run it should stay that way. It is harsh, but true.

MLB and its leaders should stand up and brag about the differences that make its game great. It should note the math of the issue, that the NFL's competitive balance is the natural consequence of a short regular season and a larger postseason, and that MLB's competitive balance, considered in the context of its own sport, is good.

100% agreed. Just last year there was a one game playoff in the AL Central because the teams had the exact same record after 162 games. That's good balance in the division to have teams end up with the exact same record after 162 games. There were other divisions decided by 3 games, 6 games, and 7.5 games after 162 games. That's not bad competition in each division.

Sure, the NFL had closer division races, but three of the divisions were decided by 4 games or more. That's over a 16 game schedule. How far apart would these teams be if they played 10 times this many games like MLB does? MLB has good competitive balance as long as you recognize how many games MLB teams play.

Joe Sheehan was right and I hope others who complain about the competitive balance of baseball read his article. The competitive balance problem isn't a baseball issue, but an issue caused by the large amount of games played.

-Before I get to the Mariotti article, there has been a marriage of Joe Morgan and Dusty Baker. Morgan will be working with the Reds in a front office-ish capacity, which ensures the Reds will sign no base-cloggers for the foreseeable future. It's always good to see two guys behind the times helping to work with a team that should be on the rise. It does also lead me to wonder if Morgan is working for the Reds, how can he call Sunday Night Baseball games for ESPN? Isn't that a conflict in that he may learn information in production meetings he can use in his role with the Reds? Does this matter? Shouldn't this matter?

Onto the king of annoying sportswriting...Jay Mariotti thinks baseball is "doozing into oblivion." I disagree. I know there are people who can't stand baseball or don't enjoy the sport, and that is fine, but I don't believe it is an overall trend. Last year baseball ended the season with the 5th highest attendance ever. This year, depending on who you want to believe, baseball attendance is either rising or declining. I think it is safe to say as a compromise it is holding steady. Most of the examples of poor attendance used in those articles are for Toronto, which isn't a good team so probably wouldn't have good attendance this year anyway. Mariotti doesn't see it that way.

There are times, such as just the other night, when an old man's game known as baseball sneaks up and reminds us that it still can be relevant. In the space of mere hours, Colorado's Ubaldo Jimenez became the first pitcher whose name begins with a "U'' to throw a no-hitter, a walk-encrusted treat followed by 18 scoreless innings -- did you spazz, too, when the screen flashed NY 0, STL 0 17th? -- that left Cardinals manager Tony La Russa again looking like a wacky professor who thinks himself into conundrums ... and 20-inning losses.

So the only way baseball can be relevant is to have baseball records broken every night? Why isn't this standard held to other sports like the NBA or the NFL? Baseball isn't so boring that an all-time record has to be broken to make it interesting. Records aren't broken in those leagues every night, yet those sports are seen as relevant, so why does it have to happen in baseball? Fans of baseball find the sport exciting even during normal games.

It's OK, Tony -- really -- to disrupt your rotation in mid-April and use a starting pitcher in the seventh hour of a game. Certainly, it's a smarter option than trotting out utilitymen Felipe Lopez and Joe Mather to pitch the final three innings.

No, Jay--really--it's not fine to disrupt the rotation to win one game. The season is a marathon not a sprint, and it is currently April. If La Russa didn't want to disrupt his rotation, he shouldn't have to do that. He's the manager and at that point, winning one game isn't worth it to him compared to getting his rotation out of whack. The Cardinals are in the middle of a stretch of 25 games in 26 days. Sure, the rotation could have gotten out of order, but there is a bigger picture managers have to look at.

"The outcome was disappointing, but the heart the club showed was amazing," La Russa said. "I give them a standing ovation."

If so, the manager should be booed to the Illinois side of the Mississippi River. And thanked, in a perverse way, for giving us something to argue about.

One thing I hate about sports today is that the mere playing of a game isn't good enough for the media. There always has to be "something to talk about" or an angle on the season or game to make it worth talking about. The competition of a game is no longer sufficient to entertain the media...at least it feels that way.

Not until Saturday night did I even know the regular season had started -- what with Duke vs. Butler, the Tiger Woods debacle, Phil Loves Amy, the beginning of the NBA and NHL playoffs and this week's primetime debut of the NFL Draft.

And of course because Jay Mariotti didn't know the regular season had started means no one else was paying attention to the MLB season. Mariotti has his pulse right on the nation when it comes to knowing what they do or don't care about...as can be seen by the fact nobody fucking likes him or even other sports journalists think he has not one bit of credibility as a sports journalist.

I swear, it could be weeks before the masses pay much attention to baseball, as evidenced by stunning sections of empty seats in one-time hotbeds with formerly packed parks -- Baltimore,

They aren't very good.

Cleveland

They are terrible.

Toronto --

Also not a very good team. Maybe the fact these teams aren't very good contribute to the fan's apathy towards attending games in those cities, rather than are indicative of a trend towards more fan apathy towards baseball in general. Really, that's too far for Mariotti to look. He prefers to make snap judgments based on initial impressions to seeing or hearing data.

The first weekend of Fox's game coverage was down 16 percent from last year's ratings and down 27 percent from 2008.

I am sure this had nothing to do with the fact these games were competing directly against the Masters and Tiger Woods comeback there. There is no correlation there, right? Two different sporting events on at the exact same time, one a normal baseball game, the other the 3rd round of the most prestigious golf tournament where the best golfer in the world is in the running for the lead after taking a break because of a huge scandal...should baseball beat the Masters out in the ratings in this instance?

If not for the usual high demand in stadiums where the home team either is adored (Yankee Stadium, Fenway Park, Wrigley Field, Dodger Stadium, Citizens Bank Park) or breaking in a new crib (Target Field in Minnesota), baseball would be a niche attraction.

Summing up what Mariotti says here..."If not for all the cities where baseball is hugely popular, baseball may not be popular at all."

I think this could go for almost every sport. We don't use the empty seats at Jacksonville to show that the NFL is declining in fan interest do we? How can we just rule out these six cities where baseball is popular and act like they are the outliers of fan interest when there is interest in other MLB cities as well? Jay uses three cities that have terrible teams as proof baseball is declining in fan interest, but doesn't think the six cities he lists that have a huge interest in baseball prove this wrong. Something is wrong with believing this. I think even staying at the same attendance level as last year or the year before is impressive given the state of the economy.

"It's definitely different. I was here in the glory years, or whatever you want to call it, when it was packed every night. It's kind of a shame to see it the way it is now," mourned Blue Jays manager Cito Gaston, who now sees crowds of four figures at Rogers Centre in hockey-mad Toronto.

Again, Toronto is used as an example of why MLB-wide fan interest has dived. In the glory years all the fair-weather fans will be out, so attendance will be good. No one is going to pay money to go see a crappy team play. That's pretty much been proven in every sport every single year. This lack of attendance in Toronto is a result of the Blue Jays not being a good team, not because fan interest has declined overall. If the Blue Jays were good, fans would be there. I truly believe this.

"I didn't hear anything -- just quiet," Orioles third baseman Miguel Tejada told reporters last week in Baltimore after a game attended by an announced 9,129 fans, the smallest crowd in Camden Yards history.

The Orioles aren't a good team. Also, the unemployment rate in Washington D.C. is 11.6% , 7.7% for Maryland, 9.5% in West Virginia and 7.4% in Virginia. That's most of the Orioles fan base right there.

For the game to resonate in the future, the fuddy-duddies in charge must recognize the importance of making the product faster, younger, sexier and more streamlined.

Because Jay Mariotti is the type of person who likes to bitch about problems and not actually fix them, he provides no examples or suggestions for how MLB can do this. He thinks they should just do it...somehow.

Football, more popular than ever, doesn't have those problems. Basketball, now the No. 2 sport nationally, doesn't have those problems.

No, what the NFL has is a huge labor problem that could hurt the sport tremendously and the NBA has massive financial problems with many teams. I think MLB wouldn't trade their problems for the NBA's financial problems at this point. MLB isn't a perfect sport, but neither is the NBA or the NFL.

Nor are the powers-that-be investing their time in the right places when they pull stunts such as banning the hoodie of a rare character, Tampa Bay Rays manager Joe Maddon, because the pullover sweatshirt he wore last weekend in cold, rainy Boston wasn't OK'd by the league.

Are the powers-that-be in the NFL investing their time in the right places when they fine players thousands of dollars for violating the incredibly strict dress code players must follow? The dress code in the NFL is as strict, if not more so, than the dress code in MLB. Just Wednesday Mariotti wrote an article about how Tim Tebow needs to save the NFL from hoodlums and yet here he is acting like the NFL has their shit all together, even when they do the same thing to their players and coaches MLB did to Joe Madden...strictly enforcing the dress code. On Wednesday, MLB relaxed the dress code and said Madden could wear his hoodie, you don't see the NFL relaxing the dress code too often.

I think most of the dress code violations players, coaches and managers get fined for are stupid, but this happens in the NFL and MLB.

Keep wearing the hoodie, Joe. Let them come and tear it off you. It'll be the most fun we've seen in baseball this month.

This is strange coming from the guy who earlier in this column claimed he didn't know the MLB season had started. It's amazing that a guy who hasn't been paying any attention to the sport can somehow know exactly how fun has been seen in baseball games during the month. Only in a Jay Mariotti article can you read about how a sportswriter hasn't been paying attention to a sport, but then he also claims to know everything that has happened in that sport so far.

Meanwhile, too many games still run much too long. That's why I applauded Joe West, the veteran umpire, when he trashed the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox for turning what should be baseball's best ongoing attraction into unwatchable TV.

This happened in early April. So the whole "I haven't been paying attention thing" was hyperbole or just a lie to try and act like Mariotti had a point?

"They're the two clubs that don't try to pick up the pace," West said. "They're two of the best teams in baseball. Why are they playing the slowest? It's pathetic and embarrassing. They take too long to play.

As I have stated previously, if Joe West wants to pick up the pace of the game while he is the home plate umpire, he has every right in the rulebook to speed up the game...but he doesn't take advantage of it. Lay down the law as the home plate umpire or shut up about the speed of the game.

Naturally, Selig toes the line, refusing to order the sport's two most powerful teams to quicken their act. "It isn't the time of the game, it's the pace of the game," he said.

I agree the Yankees and Red Sox need to speed up their games, but they aren't going to do so until the current rules, the same rules on the books, are enforced by the umpire. If the hitter is taking his sweet time getting back in the batter's box, the home plate umpire can warn him and then call an automatic strike. The home plate umpire can do this again and again until the game is sped up. The rules are on the books, they just need to be enforced. No team is going to listen if there aren't repercussions for not listening.

The best executive order would be to make umpires consistently enforce the pitch/hit count that already is in place -- if a pitcher or hitter violates the rules, he is penalized with a ball or strike.

For the third time...for the hitter this rule is already on the books. I am sure there isn't a way a sportswriter should know this rule, it is not like it is his job to cover sports or anything.

And forget about the grandest idea of all: shortening the regular season to 140 games. That's 22 games in lost revenue per team. The owners are in it for greed, remember, not to satisfy the paying customers.

This is a separate paragraph. This is all Mariotti mentions about this. He just says it is a grand idea, but doesn't explain why it is a grand idea or what it will fix. He just throws this idea out for no particular reason and proclaims it "the grandest idea of all." Like I said earlier, Jay Mariotti is a man who spots problems, but has no realistic ideas.

The fast start of the Yankees suggests a repeat championship in the Bronx, not a healthy happening for those -- namely, Selig -- who think the game has competitive balance.

See the Joe Sheehan column above.

The Steinbrenners are subsidizing too many teams as it is in a revenue-sharing climate, and when the Yankees keep winning titles in spite of it, it almost causes a plantation effect that doesn't inspire hope in the vast majority of cities.

One title since 2000. The Spurs are more of a dynasty in the NBA than the Yankees over the last decade and the Steelers are more of a dynasty in the NFL than the Yankees in that span too.

And when we aren't lamenting lopsided economics,

Which is true, but is more of a result of one team (the Yankees) being the lopsided one, and not an effect of 5-6 teams that spend way more than any other team. Also, there is no viable solution to this.

slow games,

Can be fixed by umpires following the rules on the books.

nose-diving attendance

Which probably isn't true, but if it is true, "nose-diving" is a huge overstatement. The economy can be blamed partially for this.

and low TV ratings, there is the issue of race.

Here we go with this issue. I sometimes feel like some sportswriters and critics of MLB's diversity think MLB intentionally leads minorities in a direction to play a different sport. MLB has done a lot to try and increase the amount of minority players currently playing. MLB is the most racially diverse major sport in the United States if you pay attention to how many different countries are represented, but that's not good enough.

The best young, black athletes aren't playing baseball anymore, which makes Jackie Robinson Day a bittersweet experience and leads some African-American players to publicly ask if franchises are participating in racism by not signing black players in the twilight of their careers, such as Jermaine Dye and Gary Sheffield.

The idea MLB is blackballing these two players is madness. I am sure if these players had reasonable salary demands for their age they would be playing right now. Where's the cry for John Smoltz or Pedro Martinez to get sympathy for being blackballed? MLB has tried to get minorities involved with the sport, but it is easier to play football or basketball growing up because you don't need as much gear or space to play. You need a glove, bat, ball for baseball and you pretty much just need a ball for football. Plus, baseball isn't as sexy of a sport as football or basketball.

The most important player for the sport's future, it can be argued, is Jason Heyward (right), the Atlanta Braves rookie slugger who looks like the next great player and has embraced trying to promote baseball in the inner city.

Yet, for as dynamic as Heyward is, does America know anything about him?

I would say we know more about Jason Heyward than has ever been known about a 20 year old rookie in MLB history. He has been profiled everywhere, including in a huge Sports Illustrated spread two weeks ago. He is 20 years old and now overexposed already.

The season will plod along, ebb and flow as always into October, but by then, the only people who will care are fans of the teams still playing.

This is absolutely not true. Fans of baseball will be watching these games.

Be sure one will be the Yankees, and that their games will extend close to four hours and well past midnight.

Of course one team will be the Yankees, they have made one World Series since 2001 compared to the Cardinals, Red Sox, and Phillies two World Series appearances during that time. The Yankees are just a shoo-in to make it aren't they?

But, hey, at least Joe Maddon isn't allowed to wear that darned hoodie anymore.

Baseball has problems, just like other sports have problems. I don't think baseball's problems are any worse than any other major sport's. There are people who hate baseball and that is fine, but there are also people who hate football and basketball. It doesn't mean any of these sports are declining. Oh, and Joe Maddon can wear that darned hoodie still.

Major League Baseball isn't America's Pastime anymore, but I also don't believe it is "nose-diving" when it comes to fan interest.

Feel free to talk the NFL Draft down below in the comments.

16 comments My 2010 NFL Mock Draft

I don't know if I like the change this year to having the draft on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, but I guess I will have to get used to it. I actually feel like I did mediocre-to-bad in my mock draft last year, I feel especially good about nailing, yeah nailing, the Darrius Heyward-Bey pick. Other than that, I wasn't terribly accurate last year. It's always tough to do a mock draft given the fact trades will occur (like the Jets-Browns trade last year which ended up with Mark Sanchez with the Jets), but I still like to get my draft down on paper. Let's see how bad my mock draft for the 1st round looks after the actual draft occurs.

It is pretty hard to mock up a draft towards the end, so some of my picks may look funny, but teams are always making surprise picks and I am trying to predict those surprises. Of course, many will just be wrong because conventional (and my) wisdom was wrong. As always, these are the players I think the teams will take, not who I actually think the teams SHOULD take.

1. St. Louis- Sam Bradford, QB

As I said last year, I am not a huge fan of taking quarterbacks so early in the draft unless you feel very confident they are the right guy. I thought the Lions should have taken an OT in the 1st round last year, but I can't blame them for taking Stafford. I feel much the same way about the Rams this year. They can't go into the season with the shit they have at quarterback now. Any draft pick at the quarterback position is almost an upgrade for this team. I'm not sold on Bradford for a few reasons, two of which are his injury history and the offense he played in with Oklahoma. I feel like the Big 12 didn't have that many stellar defenses over the past couple of years and for me, the performance against Florida in the 2009 National Championship Game still rings as a problem. It wasn't terrible, but it wasn't also great. Otherwise, he just threw well against Big 12 defenses...of course which quarterback didn't do that over the past couple of years?

Bottom line, the Rams need a quarterback and Bradford is probably the best quarterback available in this draft. Some people like Jimmy Clausen more. I don't, even though Clausen did play in a more pro-style offense in college.

2. Detroit Lions- Ndamukong Suh, DT

If the Lions go with any other pick, it will drive me crazy. I feel like Suh is the best player on the board here, the Lions need help on defense and he is a great guy to be the face of the franchise defensively. I am afraid the Lions are going to try and draft an offensive tackle, which ironically I suggested last year. They need an OT, there is no doubt about that, Jeff Backus doesn't always get the job done. Walter Football states the Lions should take Russell Okung here because:

The problem remains though; Jeff Backus is a good run-blocker, but he's a sub-par pass-protector and he has shown that he can't keep elite right defensive ends from penetrating into the backfield and plowing Matthew Stafford into the turf.

Unfortunately, many good offensive tackles can't stop good defensive ends from penetrating in the backfield on some occasions. The Bears are going to move Peppers around, Clay Matthews isn't just going to come from one side of the offensive line and even with Jared Allen in the division, I just don't find the reason to draft an OT here very compelling honestly. The Lions need an OT and I won't be offended if they took one here, but let's not get brain freeze over this one. Even with his injury history, I think Suh should be the choice in this spot. Draft Suh and let him be the guy he looks like he will be.

3. Tampa Bay Buccaneers- Gerald McCoy, DT

This pick can't be anyone but McCoy or Suh. I went to a Panthers-Tampa Bay game and it was brutal to watch Tampa Bay struggle to stop the run. Raheem Morris is a defensive guy and McCoy is nearly on par with Suh in my mind. The Bucs have to get one of the defensive tackles and if all hell breaks loose and neither are available, I say take one of the offensive tackles or just skip the pick. There is no defensive end, safety or receiver worth taking at this point for the Bucs.

(Isn't it ironic I say Big 12 defenses suck and the first 2 defensive players off the board are defensive tackles from the Big 12? Yes, that is some irony.)

One caveat...Raheem Morris worked under Monte Kiffin who coached Eric Berry at Tennessee. So there is a chance Morris drafts Eric Berry in this spot for this reason, and because Eric Berry is probably one of the best players in the draft.

4. Washington Redskins- Trent Williams

Okung or Williams? That's what it seems to be boiling down to. Okung should easily get this spot, but I don't think he will. I am not saying Williams is a workout-wonder or anything, but there was a time when he wasn't considered a left tackle...and then he had a great Combine. I'm going to go ahead and call him a potential bust at left tackle in this draft. I am beyond torn on this pick. Mike Shanahan doesn't generally miss on offensive tackles (Ryan Clady, Ryan Harris, etc.) and I think he is going to want a guy who can the best fit in the zone blocking scheme he runs. That guy would be Trent Williams...assuming he is a good left tackle, not a good right tackle. I think he is a right tackle and Okung should be the pick, but I think the Redskins protect McNabb at this spot and go with Williams.

5. Kansas City Chiefs- Russell Okung

I feel like the first part of this draft is too easy to pick, so I may be underthinking this. That makes me uneasy. This is such an obvious pick if the Redskins draft Williams, like I believe they will. Okung is the best natural left tackle in the draft and the Chiefs have to protect Matty Icccccccccccccce. Last year, he got sacked a ton and that can't obviously happen again. The Chiefs probably won't take a safety here and I don't believe Bulaga is the pick here. I would take Okung, put him beside Brandon Albert and be happy that Matt Cassel can't blame poor protection from the left side for a repeat of his 55% completion percentage and 69.9 rating this past year.

6. Seattle Seahawks- Bryan Bulaga, OT

Here's where it gets a little tricky for me. For me, Eric Berry is the logical choice here and I see no reason why the Seahawks would not draft him. On the other hand, they need a left tackle and Bryan Bulaga is still on the board. My gut tells me the Seahawks are taking Bryan Bulaga because they need someone to protect the quarterback. Eric Berry would be a much sexier choice in this spot though. I agree with the thinking that sexiness takes a back seat to actual need and the Seahawks take Bulaga.

7. Cleveland Browns- Eric Berry, S

They aren't taking a quarterback, unless they want to be like the Panthers and pay Jake Delhomme a shitload of money to sit on the bench next year. They also traded for Seneca Wallace and I just don't see them drafting Clausen here. Should they? Possibly, but they also shouldn't have signed Delhomme in my mind. For my money, Berry is the 2nd or 3rd best player in this draft. Sure, Holmgren is an offensive guy, but this move makes so much sense it just has to happen.

8. Oakland Raiders- Bruce Campbell, OT

I love picking for the Raiders. It is just easy to do. Just find a player who is an athlete out of college and has great peripheral numbers and the Raiders are going to want that guy. Last year it was Darrius Heyward-Bey and this year it is Bruce Campbell. Ironically he is from Maryland as well, but Campbell is a much better pick than Heyward-Bey was. I hate to say it, but this is not exactly a super-risky choice and if it works out Campbell could very well be a great offensive tackle. Of course, he is inexperienced and he could probably just as much fail based on the fact he looks like a workout-warrior-type player.

9. Buffalo Bills- Jimmy Clausen

I don't see how Clausen isn't the pick here. The Bills are changing to a 3-4 defense but there is no way I can see them taking a NT here and letting Trent Edwards stay at the quarterback position. Edwards isn't terrible, but the new coach/GM in Buffalo are going to want their own quarterback and Clausen is a great pick at #9. I am so torn on him right now. I have heard of his potential leadership problems like this and I really don't know what to think. He has had the world at his feet for a good portion of his teenage life. He called a press conference to announce he was going to Notre Dame and he was humbled a bit there. He looks like he has an ego and may be a dick, but that doesn't mean he is a bad quarterback. For me, he had no chance with the offensive line at Notre Dame blocking for him and I think he is a great pick for the Bills here.

If one of the OT's fall here, then possibly, that could be the pick for the Bills, but I don't see that happening. I personally think the Bills should work on their offensive line before drafting a quarterback, but there's no need to reach for an offensive lineman.

10. Jacksonville Jaguars- Derrick Morgan

To be honest, the best place for Tebow to end up would be Jacksonville. He has a built-in fan base, the Jaguars need an attractive player in this spot, and though they don't hate David Garrard he hasn't exactly shown himself to be the sexy quarterback that sells tickets. The Jaguars need to draft someone who sells tickets. There is NO WAY they can draft Tebow here. That's just a reach. I have no idea who the Jaguars will draft here. Drafting Derrick Morgan says they have given up on Quentin Groves and Derrick Harvey, drafting a running back makes sense but they do have Maurice Jones-Drew on the roster and it isn't a huge area of need, drafting a quarterback over Garrard seems unlikely, it is too early to draft a linebacker, and I don't know if they want to draft a wide receiver...again.

I think they may look to shore up their secondary and draft Joe Haden if they pass on a defensive end, but I think in the end Derrick Morgan may not get past them. For my money, I think Haden makes the most sense, but they have to get a pass rush. I see them trading this pick though. I am not smart enough to predict to whom.

11. Denver Broncos- Rolando McClain

I am very torn on this pick as well. Josh McDaniels isn't going to want another Brandon Marshall so I would not consider Dez Bryant here, I don't see him taking a nose tackle here either, but I do think the defense is the pick at this spot. Receiver is a huge need, but why take Bryant and risk having another Marshall? I am tempted to put Earl Thomas at this spot, but I don't think he will be the pick. Champ Bailey isn't getting any younger, so Joe Haden would also make sense. That being said, the pick is Rolando McClain, even if this feels high for him. Josh McDaniels doesn't give a shit what you or I think.

12. Miami Dolphins- Dan Williams

If Williams is still on the board, I think Williams makes a lot of sense. There may be a temptation for Parcells to draft Jean Pierre-Paul, but the Dolphins really need a nose tackle for the 3-4 defense and Williams is the best out there at this spot. This feels like an easy pick, which means Parcells will surprise me and not take him.

13. San Francisco 49ers- Sergio Kindle

I love Kindle and I think the 49ers are going to gamble that Haden will be there at #17 (since they have two picks courtesy of my favorite NFL team), but I don't think Kindle will be there at #17. For me, Kindle is the kind of guy who could have been a Top-10 pick. I thought he was fantastic at Texas last year and I can easily see him transitioning to the NFL with no problems. Nearly every mock I see has Haden going in this spot. The 49ers do need a tackle also, but there are no viable tackles in this spot for them, so that's out. Plus, I almost mocked Haden to the Jags at #10, so I am sort of hedging here and betting if Haden falls to #13, he will fall past the next three teams and the 49ers can get him there...if he falls that far.

14. Seattle Seahawks- CJ Spiller

Bryant or CJ Spiller? A quarterback's best friend is a running game and CJ Spiller is a dynamite game breaker. I think Pete Carroll will see a little Reggie Bush in Spiller. Many people believe Spiller is clearly the best running back in the draft and I am not sure I agree honestly. I really like Ryan Matthews and a team is going to get a good running back in Montario Hardesty. One thing is true, Spiller is fast and can make plays with the ball. The Seahawks have their OT and their future QB (they hope), there is no need to spend a high pick on a receiver when there are quality WR's available in the 2nd round. Spiller is a game breaker at RB.

15. New York Giants- Jared Odrick, DT/DE

I feel like I know this pick will be defense. The Giants had a bad defense last year and they have a new defensive coordinator. I thought the secondary could be a spot where the Giants will draft, but it feels like they will draft for the defensive line, knowing they had success in 2007 with getting pressure on the quarterback with the front four. Odrick is a Penn State guy and would seem to fit in well with the Giants.

16. Tennessee Titans- Jason Pierre-Paul, DE

The Titans need some help on the defensive line and they will be lucky to have him fall here. Pierre-Paul is a freak and they have to take him here if he is available. He was overshadowed for a year by George Selvie at South Florida and then came into his own this year. He's a fantastic athlete and the Titans seem to really like guys who are athletes on defense and it is an area of need for them. If Pierre-Paul is already taken, I can see it being another defensive lineman like Eversen Griffen.

17. San Francisco 49ers- Joe Haden, CB

I've tried to shy away from this pick all week because it seems to make so much sense. Haden is the #1 corner in the draft on most draft boards and the 49ers need cornerbacks. If Haden falls this far, he won't fall past this point. The 49ers have a defensive minded coach and I have them taking two defensive players with their 2 first round picks. I don't know exactly how I feel about Haden, I actually think Kyle Wilson may be the better NFL prospect, but if Haden is available at this point the 49ers have to take him.

18. Pittsburgh Steelers- Mike Iupati, OG

The Steelers need an offensive lineman. I don't know why they didn't draft one in the 1st round last year, that was just short-sighted in my opinion. I know the Steelers won the Super Bowl, but the moments that stood out during the playoffs often involved Roethlisberger running around on the field trying to find an open receiver. This feels like too Pittsburgh-y of a pick to me (and usually teams surprise us at this area of the 1st round), but it is an area of need and Iupati is the best player available at that position on the offensive line. If the Steelers want to run the ball and protect Roethlisberger then they will go with the offensive line in the first round.

19. Atlanta Falcons- Brandon Graham, DE/OLB

Brandon Graham was a tough pick here. I almost went with a linebacker, but I think ultimately if Graham falls this far, the Falcons have to upgrade their pass rush. They are in the same division as the Saints and the Falcons know from seeing Matt Ryan everyday in practice how crucial it is to put pressure on the passer. I am not as much of a Graham guy as some people seem to be, it seems like he is a "hot" prospect since there is a chance he could also play in a 3-4 defense and that is increasing his value. For me, he is a pretty safe pick and I feel like the team that gets him will have made a good pick though.

20. Houston Texans- Ryan Matthews, RB

I don't even know if Matthews makes sense in this spot or not. The Texans have Steve Slaton, but most teams have gone to the two-running back system and the Texans have had injuries in the past at this position. They need another running back and they will take Matthews here. I think a guy like Earl Thomas, Kyle Wilson could be the pick, and it would not shock me to see them go with the offensive line at this spot either. I think the Texans are in the process of building a great defense and this isn't a hugely deep draft in regard to the corner position, so I don't think the Texans need to draft early if they want an impact running back. A guy like Patrick Robinson, Brandon Ghee, Dominique Franks or Chris Cook will be available later in the draft, while I am not sure the Texans can wait that long at the running back position. Earl Thomas makes a lot of sense, but I think the pick is Matthews.

21. Cincinnati Bengals- Dez Bryant, WR

I did not choose Bryant to Cincinnati because he is a troublemaker and they seem to collect those (or have in the past), but anyone who saw the Bengals last year knows they need more offensive weapons around Carson Palmer. Right now the depth chart is Antonio Bryant, Chad Johnson, Jerome Simpson, and Andre Caldwell. Dez Bryant would be a great addition to the offense. Sure, they need a tight end, but is it really worth drafting Gresham over Bryant? I don't believe so. I have seen mock drafts with Taylor Mays here, but I don't see them going that way here. They need offensive help more.

22. New England Patriots- Jermaine Gresham, TE

I have a feeling the Patriots may trade down/up and either get a higher 1st round pick (mostly unlikely) or gain more 2nd round picks. I don't know if they will keep this pick. If they do draft at this spot, they need a tight end. Literally, they have almost zero on the roster right now. I am not all the way on the Gresham bandwagon, but Belichick has shown he will draft tight ends in the 1st round with guys like Daniel Graham and Ben Watson. Gresham is a tight end who can stretch the defense and the Patriots could use a guy like that. I can see them going defensive line, but I am predicting they may go that direction with their 2nd round pick(s), which is a luxury they have.

If Dez Bryant falls this far, I still think the Patriots will still take Greshem I think.

23. Green Bay Packers- Anthony Davis, OT

I am NOT an Anthony Davis fan. The whole "he has potential but hasn't shown it yet or doesn't seem to care to reach it" thing really perturbs me with him. The Packers need help on the offensive line and it is either Davis or Charles Brown and I think Davis will be the guy since he is rated higher. The Packers also could use this pick on a cornerback, but I think unless they are complete morons and saw how the line struggled last year, the pick should be an offensive tackle in this spot. The reason I see the Packers going defense is if most of the good offensive tackles are no longer available. If so, I see a cornerback in this spot. The sight of Kurt Warner picking apart the secondary has to be still fresh in the minds of Packers fans and coaches.

24. Philadelphia Eagles- Earl Thomas, FS

I love Earl Thomas. I think he is going to make a great NFL safety, so therefore I love this pick for the Eagles. I just hope they are smart enough to make the pick. Taylor Mays could also be the pick in this spot, but I personally believe Thomas will end up being the overall better safety. Thomas fills a need for the Eagles and they have spent time trying to improve their defense this offseason with the acquisition of Ernie Sims. The Eagles need a safety and I think Thomas will be the guy they choose. Andy Reid does love some defensive linemen, but they can't ignore a guy who could end up being a Brian Dawkins-type can they?

25. Baltimore Ravens- Kyle Wilson, CB

This seems to be an easy pick. Maybe I am under-thinking it a bit. The Ravens had a bad secondary last year that seems to be aging as well. They need help here and they have answered some of the offensive questions they have with getting Boldin and Stallworth, so they should shore up their secondary. Wilson is arguably the best overall cornerback in the draft, so they would be excited to get him here. I honestly don't know if I can see another direction they may go with this pick. I think this has to be it.

26. Arizona Cardinals- Jerry Hughes, DE/OLB

This may be a little bit of a surprise pick. The Cardinals lost Karlos Dansby in free agency and I see Jerry Hughes as a guy who could potentially fill this void. He can get pressure on the quarterback as he proved at TCU and he is a high character guy who will fit in well with a 3-4/4-3 defense. I think the Cardinals are going to be looking to get some pressure on the quarterback after the Packers playoff game and the loss of Dansby in free agency. I could see the Cardinals looking to perhaps looking at some offensive line help, but they aren't going to find a pass rusher like Hughes this late in the draft. They can draft OL later.

27. Dallas Cowboys- Taylor Mays, S

I don't know if I see the Cowboys going offensive tackle with their 1st round pick. I think Mays is going to be available and the Cowboys are going to have a hard time passing him up. Nate Allen is available in my mock draft also, but I think Mays is more of a Cowboys-type player and he can provide more of the hard hitting defense that the Cowboys displayed towards the end of last year. I think the offensive line can be shored up in the 2nd round and they don't have as great of a need at that spot as they do at safety.

28. San Diego Chargers- Jahvid Best, RB

I thought the Chargers should have drafted a running back last year. Instead they dealt with the corpse of LaDainian Tomlinson all year and paid for it with no running game. Perhaps they have learned from their mistake last year (of course all they had to give Tomlinson was a quality FB and quality offensive line and he could have done his job with a 4.0 ypc average. What's wrong with them?). I hope so. If Jahvid Best is available they need to draft him. Terrence Cody will be a tempting guy to draft since they could use a quality nose tackle, and defense is important, but there is no way they should ignore the fact they don't have an every down running back. Darren Sproles isn't that guy, Jahvid Best could be. This team needs a running game badly, they would be wise to go offense over defense in this situation.

29. New York Jets- Brian Price, DT/DE

I don't know how many people realize (outside of Jets fans) the Jets almost made the Super Bowl without their best defensive lineman, Kris Jenkins, who got injured earlier in the year. I think the Jets have upgraded their offense in the offseason and now they will look to make a great defense even better by drafting a defensive tackle. Brian Price has been mock drafted by many to go in the 2nd round, but I think he has 1st round talent and the Jets are going to jump all over him at this spot. Granted he is not a natural nose tackle and I don't know if he could play that position, but he could probably play the end in a 3-4 defense. Other people have a defensive end/linebacker as the spot here, but I think the Jets are going to get some insurance for the defensive tackle/defensive end position before they get a defensive end/linebacker hybrid.

30. Minnesota Vikings- Devin McCourty, CB

The Vikings need cornerbacks for Favre's Farewell Tour Third Edition to be successful. I have seen the offensive line and defensive tackle position getting some mentions here, but I think the Vikings want to pair a quality cornerback up with Antoine Winfield and there isn't much on the roster currently to do that. McCourty makes sense here and he is the best cornerback available at this spot. I don't mean to keep pushing offensive line choices to the 2nd/3rd round, but I think McCourty is the guy who should be the pick...which means he will either be off the board or not the pick for the Vikings at all if my previous mock draft accuracy holds true.

31. Indianapolis Colts- Maurkice Pouncey, C/G

I don't care whether anyone will say Bill Polian was right or not about the Colts offensive line being the reason they lost the Super Bowl or not, the Colts are going to look to upgrade the offensive line in this draft. They don't generally spend too many high picks on defense and they have a pretty good offense together already, so I think a versatile lineman like Pouncey is the perfect fit for this team. He can play guard or center, thereby being beside Jeff Saturday at the guard position or his replacement. If I am the Colts, I am placing a premium on improving the offensive line and Pouncey is the type of versatile offensive lineman that the Colts will love.

32. New Orleans Saints- Sean Witherspoon, LB

The Saints did pick up Alex Brown in the offseason and they do still have Will Smith. I almost had the Saints drafting Everson Griffen though because he provided such a great value and has such a high ceiling at this point in the draft. The fact remains they let Scott Fujita go to Cleveland and have a big hole at the linebacker position...and it just so happens the best outside linebacker in the draft is still available. I think they take Witherspoon in this spot. He has some questions about him from some scouts who have looked at him, but he provides great value here and the Saints have a need that should be filled. This would be a great pick for the Saints to make and I think they will pull the trigger on Witherspoon. Eversen Griffen wouldn't be a bad pick either though.

Ok, well that's my mock draft. Let's see how I did later tonight. I almost did a 2nd round also, but that would have just been embarrassing to see how wrong I was.