0 comments Jelisa Castrodale Has Made Me Overly Defensive

Jelisa Castrodale has written a column about Cam Newton for NBCSports.com. Her main statement, that Cam Newton is the closest thing Charlotte has had to a superstar is true, but I am overly-sensitive and there are some things that I find wrong about the column. The adulation for Newton that is being spoken and read after just one year in the NFL is a bit much for me. I still want to see more from him before I start to crown him a super star.

There are little things about this column that make slightly irritated. Small little shadings of the truth that draw my ire. It is almost like Castrodale wants us to believe there wasn't interest in the tiny town of Charlotte for the Carolina Panthers team prior to Newton's arrival. It's not like Charlotte is a tiny market either. Yes, Charlotte is considered small market team, but according to the 2011 census Charlotte is the 17th largest city in the United States by population. By population, there are 21 NFL teams who play in cities with smaller populations than Charlotte. So the idea that Charlotte isn't a big city and is a small market is a bit false. Regardless, I understand the perception, but the idea Charlotte is small isn't the only issue I have with this column, even if the main point is probably accurate.

It used to be one of my go-to conversation starters, whether I was holding my carry-on in a Midwestern airport or waiting for a lunch order at a West Coast taco truck. If I saw someone wearing a Carolina Panthers t-shirt, I'd always ask "So what part of North Carolina are you from?" The answer was typically a town that was, like, three Cracker Barrels from my own.

North Carolina is just such a small, down-home state! I'm glad someone who lives in North Carolina like Jelisa Castrodale apparently does is so eager to feed the stereotype that everyone knows everyone and we judge distance based on how many southern, weight-gain inducing restaurants are nearby.

Lately, when I see teal-tipped jerseys, they're on the backs of newly-minted Panthers fans or — even more likely — new fans of Newton himself.

These people, the newly-minted Panthers fans, can go to hell. I don't invite you, I demand of you. Get off the bandwagon. We don't need you around if you don't remember Randy Fasani and are over the age of 25 years old.

Yes, Newton has raised the profile of the Panthers team, but you still saw Panthers jerseys around the state prior to Newton's arrival. Quarterbacks are naturally more popular players than most other positions, but there were still plenty of Panthers fans wearing Smith, Beason, Delhomme, or Peppers jerseys prior to Newton's arrival.

He's also the first legit leading man to come out of one of the mid-'90s expansion franchises, Carolina and Jacksonville.

I know "leading man" is being used in terms of quarterbacks. I would potentially argue the popularity of guys like Fred Taylor and Steve Smith made them leading men. Perhaps not nationally, but in terms of fans of these teams. Anyway, I digress, and I do get what Castrodale is saying. She's thinking nationally. I think people are crowning Newton's ass a bit too early. He's played one season in the NFL and he's already being called a "leading man" and referred to as a franchise player or one of the ten best quarterbacks in the NFL by some "experts." Let's allow him to play two seasons in the NFL and then we can start throwing out overly-excited superlatives.

Since joining the league in 1995, the Panthers have one Super Bowl appearance but have had zero back-to-back winning seasons.

They do have three NFC Championship Game appearances since 1995. The list of teams that can brag about this in either the NFC or AFC is shorter than you would probably expect. Yes, the Panthers team hasn't had back-to-back winning seasons, but the team has experienced some success in a relatively short period of time.

They've been around the same amount of time as the Backstreet Boys, but have significantly less hardware to show for it.

This is a comparison that is reaching ever-so-desperately to be clever. Again, they lack hardware, but are fortunate to have experienced some success in a short period of time. They have as many playoff wins in their team history as Tampa Bay, Atlanta, New Orleans, and more than the Cincinnati Bengals. These teams have been around for longer than the Panthers have. So again, the team is fortunate they have had some success in a short period of time and while they haven't been an overly-successful team, they have had more high points than Jelisa Castrodale is acknowledging. So I would argue they have pretty good hardware for having been around for 17 years.

Until Nike put "Newton" above a No. 1, the word seen most frequently on the back of a Carolina jersey was a bright orange "CLEARANCE" sticker.

Again, another bad attempt at a joke that is factually incorrect. Carolina had just as many overpriced uniforms with the player's name and number on it as other NFL teams did. You could pay $100 for a Steve Smith jersey at any time over the last decade. Hell, Jimmy Clausen jerseys used to be $85.

With some exceptions (cover your ears, Julius Peppers and Steve Smith) the Panthers' roster has been stocked with prospects who didn't pan out or last-gasp veterans who showed up in Charlotte to see if they still had anything to offer,

We will get two examples of this. Otherwise, I feel this is somewhat incorrect. Most NFL teams have prospects who don't pan out or have players joining the team at the end of their career. The idea Carolina can't be singled-out concerning this phenomenon doesn't fit Castrodale's narrative. The 1996 Panthers team had veteran players, but they weren't last-gasp guys, but older players who still had talent left. Guys like Sam Mills, Kevin Greene, Stephen Davis and Eric Davis are veterans who were quality players who could contribute when they joined the Panthers. Every team has a history of players who have joined that team late in their career or drafted players who didn't pan out. It's not like this is exclusive to one team. Unfortunately the reality the Panthers aren't the only team to experience this doesn't fit in with the narrative Castrodale wants us to follow.

The current Panthers roster is stocked with quality players who were drafted and developed by the Panthers. So these "some exceptions" that Castrodale speaks of pretty much consists of the entire current roster. The current team's depth chart has one player on offense and one player on defense who were drafted by other teams. The current Panthers have every first round pick since 2002 (except for Jeff Otah, who was just waived) on the roster. They aren't an elite team or any more impressive than another NFL team, but they don't have a bunch of old guys and have done a good job through most of their history in drafting early round prospects.

The narrative Castrodale wants us to follow that the Panthers couldn't get their shit together until Cam Newton showed up just isn't true.

Rodney Peete and Vinny Testeverde are your old sofas.

Rodney Peete started for one season after a 1-15 season and Vinny Testeverde started because Jake Delhomme got injured for the entire season and David Carr was too scared to play quarterback and was "injured." It's not like they wanted to trot Testeverde out there for seven games in 2007, but they had to due to injuries. Anytime an NFL team has to use their third quarterback in a season, most likely it isn't going to be a guy fans will want to remember years later.

He also pushed Carolina's offense from last place in total offense in 2010 to seventh in the league last year, a difference worth 2,102 yards, 201 points and four more wins.

No offense to Newton, but an average quarterback could take a team with two really good running backs, an above average offensive line, two above average tight ends and Steve Smith to at least middle of the pack in offense. I'm not taking anything away from Newton because he had a huge hand in the offense moving up to 7th in the NFL, but he also had help, specifically helped drafted by the Panthers front office...which again destroys the narrative the roster was littered with has-beens and prospects who haven't panned out until Cam arrived.

After being drafted, he didn't walk off the Radio City stage and into the arms of a built-in fan base, one that covers the country like a 3G coverage map.

The Carolina area was desperate for a superstar and there is a certain built-in fan base in Carolina for the NFL. This isn't Jacksonville. Even if there are a lot of transplants in the Charlotte area, there is still a large fan base for the Panthers team and there has been for quite a few years now. Again, it fits the cute narrative that Newton saved football and turned the entire area on to the NFL, but it just isn't true. It's more fun to make up narratives that fit your point rather than accept the narrative you want to be true isn't true.

Charlotte has been known for NASCAR than its football, although "guys going around in circles all afternoon" could describe either the Coca-Cola 600 or Carolina's pre-Newton offense.

I think Castrodale means the pre-Rob Chudzinski offense since he is the offensive coordinator. Contrary to popular belief, I'm pretty sure Newton doesn't call the plays on offense and Chudzinski was smart enough to build the offense around Newton's strengths. He deserves nearly as much credit as Cam Newton gets.

Newton is building an identity by giving the Panthers one, and what he's capable of doing on the field will only give him more opportunities off of it,

What? You mean on-field success can breed endorsement opportunities and increase your profile as an athlete? Why hasn't anyone else ever talked about this?

wrapping himself in cashmere on a magazine cover or out-Manning-ing Peyton Manning.

No one can out-Manning-ing Peyton Manning. No other quarterback, not named "Eli" has the right mix of competency and goofiness.

But whatever he does, we'll be watching.

And then he will get all of the credit. I like Cam Newton, and I agree he's a star the Charlotte area needs, but it isn't like he took a perennially awful team who has never sniffed the playoffs and has single-handedly made them a very good team.

18 comments I Blame Cancer (and Maybe Randy Johnson) for My Father's Death

I thought I would post something more personal for this weekend then I would normally. I figure a little variety never hurt anyone.

My father passed away 8 years ago today at the age of 55. He died of a very aggressive form of prostate cancer. Prior to him being diagnosed, the only thing I knew about prostate cancer is it seemed like a nicer way of saying “ass cancer.” Clearly I was way off on what prostate cancer was and where the hell the prostate was exactly located. Of course I also thought the word “prejudice” was spelled “pregidous” until I was 12 years old. My 6^th grade paper on Martin Luther King, Jr. was probably a great source of laughter among the teachers at my school. I found out my freshman year of college that he was diagnosed with this type of cancer when my sister called me in my dorm room and said my parents were going to call me and tell me some bad news. My sister then told me the bad news. She decided to tell me before they could get to me because she knows my mother and father always found a way to deliver bad news in the worst way possible. Generally, my parents’ way of breaking bad news to me was saying something like, “I know you hate going to West Virginia for Thanksgiving, so we have good news! You don’t have to go to West Virginia for Thanksgiving anymore because your grandfather died!” Maybe that’s just the way it would have sounded to me.

Let me go down a rabbit hole really quickly and allow me to explain this better. A few years after my father’s diagnosis (that’s what we called it because it sounded better than “was told he was going to die sooner than he thought he would and it wasn’t going to be of natural causes”) my parents had discussed with me the idea of putting to sleep the dog I had since I was five years old. He was old and could barely walk. It didn’t help our “new” family dog took great pride in knocking him over like a bowling pin at every opportunity. When my parents and I had this conversation, I requested they call me and I would come home from college to say my last goodbyes to my nearly-lifelong pet when they made this decision. I only reiterated I wanted it to happen this way probably five times. Naturally, they decided to go ahead and put him to sleep two weeks after this conversation and NOT NOTIFY ME AT ALL. I got no call saying they were taking him to the hospital, no one calling to ask if I want him to bark at me one last time, asking whether I prefer they cremate him or bury him in the backyard…nothing. So 24 hours after the dastardly deed was done, my mother calls me on my cell phone and asks to speak to my roommate while we are at a party. She tells him they put my dog to sleep and to break the news to me tomorrow after we get back from the party. Anyway, my roommate immediately told me they had put my dog to sleep and I proceeded to have a conversation with my parents about the appropriate way to break bad news to a person.

This is why my sister called me regarding my father's bad news first before my parents could find a way to make this already bad news even worse. For all I know they would have called in a bomb threat to my dorm so I could see the bad news along with everyone else plastered on the side of a blimp hovering over the Appalachian mountains. I put nothing past them in their inability to deliver bad news appropriately.

So I am told by my sister that my parents are going to call me and tell me the bad news, which did happen maybe five minutes after I hung up with her. My dad was very positive about his diagnosis and said it wasn’t known if it had spread or not but the doctors knew it was malignant. He said he had known the doctors found the tumor during Christmas three weeks earlier, but he didn’t want us to worry until we got a full diagnosis about whether it had spread to other parts of his body or not. I’m not sure how he and my mom got through Christmas keeping this news to themselves. I was obviously worried after speaking with my father, but optimistic it was caught in time since my father had gotten his PSA checked just six months prior. A week or so after the original bad news, I received another phone call from dad saying the cancer had spread to three places in his body, but he said there was a possibility they could do surgery and remove the cancer. That sounded great. There’s still a chance all would be well. Still feeling somewhat positive. Another week or so later we find out surgery isn’t a possibility because the cancer was in the bone. I’m not a doctor, but I’m pretty sure chopping into a patient’s bones to remove cancer is a highly dangerous medical procedure. This was it. This was the final answer. There wasn't anything the doctors could do to stop the growth on a permanent basis. He was given 5-10 years to live. He lived for 5 years and 4 months.

It’s a funny thing, as I am sure many other people can attest to, how a terminal prognosis works. Once the initial shock of the prognosis wears off, the person with the terminal illness becomes the voice of reason and everyone else around him/her starts freaking the fuck out. Life becomes this ticking clock where you know there is a budgeted time left over, but you don’t know how much time has been budgeted. Sure, life is permanently that way, but it’s different when it is someone you love who has that ticking clock on their life and you try to fit everything you can into an uncertain amount of time. You think of all the things your parent will never participate in that will be big deals in your life. That’s how it selfishly worked for me. It is selfish, but I thought about these things. I thought he won’t see me get married probably (which he didn’t), he won’t see my sister get married (which he won't), he won’t meet his grandchildren (which he didn’t), and my mom will be a widow (which she is). All of a sudden your life becomes a countdown of sorts until something you know will happen, but really don't want to happen, actually does occur. It’s a very bizarre feeling and I know I am not the only one to ever experience this.

After the initial prognosis, we started going down the list of things he also wanted to do, but never got a chance to. I guess we’d call it a bucket list. My family went on a cruise, he traveled with my mom a lot and just generally got a much healthier outlook about life. It’s funny how that works too. Once he saw the end coming he was able to throw out all the other crap that most healthy people spend most of their life worrying about. It becomes sort of a “I know I’m going to die, so I really don’t give a crap” outlook on life. I think it liberated him in some ways to be able to focus on what was important. Another ironic part is he looked healthier than ever the first 1-2 years after his cancer diagnosis. He used to work out like crazy when healthy and he was in good shape, but probably too skinny and wiry for his own good because he didn’t have time to eat enough to properly maintain the workout he was keeping up. So after he was diagnosed with cancer he gained some weight, worked out less and looked a lot healthier, despite the fact he was dying of cancer.

The first couple of years weren’t so bad. I say that as a person who didn’t have terminal prostate cancer of course. I think he would agree, especially when compared to the last few years of his life. He got tired more quickly and had some pain at times in the beginning, but he was still able to work. I committed myself to coming home every summer from college to spend time with him, always mindful of that constant ticking clock which told me I didn’t have much time to see him. It’s that clock that was the worst for me. It was the intangible feeling THIS could be the last time for us to watch the MLB playoffs together, next time I see him he could have difficulty getting up the stairs or he would have trouble doing something he has always been able to do.

I honestly would be lying if I thought I could give you a timeline for his cancer in a medical sense and how the cancer progressed medically. There are two reasons for this. The first is I was away at college and he did not want me distracted. I wasn’t given complete information at all times other than being told how he felt. The second is I didn’t concern myself how the progression was going in a strictly medical sense. I wanted to know (a) how long he had left, (b) what the doctors had said at his recent appointment and (c) how he was feeling physically, emotionally, mentally. I don’t know the exact date he started chemotherapy, but I know how it made him feel, the effect it had on him, and when it stopped. Part of not knowing the minute details was a selfish desire in the hopes if I learned less about exactly what is happening, then it isn’t real. I was guilty of that. I was away at college and it was easy to compartmentalize it while I was worried about my grades.

There’s a magic number called a PSA, which stands for Prostate Specific Antigen. It tells the doctors how the cancer is growing and it can fluctuate even if you don’t have cancer. This is what I’ve been told. Basically PSA is relative for everyone and my father’s PSA stayed stable for two years. It didn’t go up for those two years, which was awesome. I would come home during the summer and he would be pretty normal, taking his medications and going to work. The problem is you don’t know how long this will last. Every doctor’s visit could bring bad news of a PSA increase. What was irritating was the next doctor’s visit could tell us if the increase from the previous doctor’s visit was permanent or just a slight increase that will decrease over time. I’m a person who likes definitive answers and this didn’t sit well with me. I hate uncertainty. He dealt with it fine though. He was upbeat (at least to me) and all was well at the doctor’s visits. “Well” being a relative term of course. Dad retired in October 2001, got a nice retirement party and was happy to be able to do what he wanted all day once he retired. This was the most liberated I can remember him being. He woke up, had coffee, spent the day running errands with my mom and enjoying life. He took a photography class and became a good photographer, researched our family’s history and became a really knowledgeable Civil War buff. I was happy for him, but always knew there would come a day when things changed.

Things changed around Winter 2001. His PSA began to go up slightly and the doctor said the cancer was growing. It had begun metastasizing. Long story short, the response to this growth was going to be chemotherapy, which is basically poisoning the human body to kill the cancer. This was the answer to combating the metastasis. I hated this answer. To me, this was like complaining of your arm hurting for a few days and the solution to be cutting off your arm. I saw chemotherapy as what happens when a terminally ill cancer patient doesn’t have any other options left over and doctors are just buying time and making the patient comfortable until death occurs. Maybe that was my non-medical expert opinion of it. This was the beginning of the end and we all knew it. He was given 5-10 years and it had been less than three years. That meant he would have to undergo chemotherapy for almost two years possibly even to meet the five year mark for survival. I was thinking the 5 year mark is where things would start going downhill. Damn me for being an optimist.

So Dad would go to chemo and then come back absolutely exhausted. It was around the beginning of 2002 that I started to see small signs of where this was ultimately headed. He started calling me the wrong person’s name a little more frequently. He called me by his twin brother’s name occasionally, but it got worse around this time. He referred to me as “Dad” (his father was still alive at this point) or even called me by my sister’s name. I’ve gotten called a girl’s name a few times in my life, but I never thought my father would be the one doing it. He did not make this mistake overly frequently, but it became noticeable. He grew tired (as well he should) doing everyday activities and he had to hire someone to take care of the lawn since he didn’t have the energy to do it. He and I always took care of the lawn together and he was adamant that no one was going to take care of his yard but him. Sure, our yard was mostly weeds with divots from me practicing golf, but it was our weeds and our divots. We mowed the weeds and forgot to replace the divots, that's how it was supposed to be. I knew that was a sort of turning point when he couldn’t do yardwork anymore. It was hard to see and I probably didn’t come home as often as I could/should from college. It wasn’t because I didn’t love him or didn’t want to be with him. I got depressed going home to see my family. I got excited to come home, then got depressed while I was there. I spent the summer after undergraduate graduation before graduate school renting an apartment at Appalachian State and basically having the time of my life. I was running away though. I knew it at the time too. My dad always claimed to understand when I spent a weekend at home that summer and then went back to the mountains even though I had nowhere specific to be.

I wasn’t a bad son and didn’t treat anyone poorly, but while my mom worked that summer taking my father to chemotherapy and my sister spent time with him, I wasn’t there as much. I’m still not sure if I feel guilt about this or not. The end didn’t scare me. It was the lead-up to the end that scared me. Just as you take joy in watching your child’s first step, first word, and the slow progressions of that child becoming more and more mature and adult-like as he/she ages, the very opposite of this progression is devastating and crippling in some ways. The man who used to play me at one-on-one basketball and throw the baseball with me in the front yard now needed a ramp instead of stairs to get up on the porch and couldn’t drive a manual transmission car anymore. Yeah, I knew this would happen at some point, but he was barely 50 years old and I had just gotten out of college. It felt like this was all happening a bit too early. I couldn’t see these things on a daily basis.

I recall coming home from school one weekend in Fall 2003. My mom had been mentioning about how my father would always talk to “Sam” while they were both undergoing chemotherapy. I had heard this “Sam” guys name from my dad a few times and had frankly paid enough attention to know the guy’s name, but not enough attention to delve further. My father’s best friend’s was named Sam and he had brain cancer, so I thought at first maybe it was that Sam. Anyway, that one weekend when I came home my mom informed me that “Sam” was Sam Mills, ex-Carolina Panthers linebacker and current coach for the Panthers (he sent my family a card after my father passed away and took the time to write something personal in it. Sam Mills was just a good guy). Sam Mills had recently been diagnosed with intestinal cancer. His prognosis was grim, much like my father's prognosis. While my mom wanted to talk about Sam’s personal life, I was thrilled he got to see one of my favorite Panthers players (while in chemotherapy…I was thrilled to know my father could attend chemo with Sam Mills. It sounds insensitive to think and write down) and started peppering my dad with questions about the current season from Sam Mills' point of view, none of which he could answer. You are sitting in a room with Sam Mills, why aren’t you asking him questions about the current team, about his experiences in the NFL, or pretty much anything sports-related? The idea was unfathomable to me.

My father explained to me they had never discussed football once while at chemotherapy. They always talked about their respective experience with cancer, life in general, and about their families. Sam Mills was an NFL position coach (Linebackers coach at the time for Carolina) and my dad didn’t talk about the current season (in which Carolina was eventually headed to the Super Bowl) or his career with him? Sam Mills? The same passionate guy I saw on the field for several years with Carolina and New Orleans didn’t bring this up? My dad never really explained to me, but I figured out pretty quickly why they never discussed football or Mills’ career. It wasn’t important really. What was important was coming back to chemo the next week and the week after that and the week after that and seeing the same people at the same time on a weekly basis. Monotony and repetition became a form of progress. If you are back the next week, that means you are winning the battle at that point and that’s all that matters. You are present. I remember people used to tell my father it was good to see him and he always responded with, “It’s good to be seen."

By Winter 2004, that’s all that mattered to him, just being seen. The chemotherapy wasn’t working as much anymore. He missed the second half of the Carolina-New England Super Bowl due to physical complications from the chemotherapy during the week. He no longer responded within a day or so to my emails about possible job opportunities I found. It was decided by his doctors that continuing with chemotherapy was probably going to be counterproductive at this point. Ultimately though it was my dad’s call to stop the chemotherapy. The cancer was growing and wasn’t going to stop. He was tired and didn’t want to deal with chemotherapy anymore. At this point he no longer could go upstairs. His daily devotional still lays on his office desk bookmarked to March 2004, the date when he last made it upstairs to his office to read it. He had a hospital bed moved downstairs and moved around the house in a wheel chair. When I graduated from grad school in May 2004, he wasn’t able to attend my graduation because he couldn’t travel at that point. I came home May 10, 2004 after graduation and he could barely talk. Hospice was making visits nearly every day to help take care of him. Cancer had beaten him at this point. We all knew that. He knew that. Time was his enemy. We just had to be around in order to be with him.

May 18^th was a Tuesday. We had dinner and my father could barely move his mouth at this point. He still could make faces at the prospect of eating my mom’s cooking though…a 24 year long running joke continued until the end. My father’s corny jokes became more creative at this point given the degree of difficulty in physically being able to make the joke. After dinner, my mother informed my sister and me that my father was hanging on because he thought he had to. That he was ready to die, but was waiting for some approval from us that we will be fine. I have no idea how she came upon this information. I don’t know if my father told my mother, if it was information understood between them in only a way people who have been married for 26 years can understand or the hospice nurse told my mom. Either way, it wasn’t happening. I wasn’t giving him permission to die. “Fuck that,” I said. “No way, I’m not giving him permission to go. I will absolutely not do that. I’m not ready.” That's a direct quote. My sister said something to the effect of, “But Ben, he is ready.” These words touched me so much, I stormed out of the room, went back downstairs, ignored further attempts to talk about it and finished watching Randy Johnson of the Arizona Diamondbacks throw a perfect game against the Braves with my dad somewhat focused on the game in front of the television in his wheelchair. Yeah, after a lifetime of watching Braves games together, the last game we saw together the Braves didn’t get a runner on-base.

Ultimately, at the end of the baseball game I saw where he was at physically. I was holding back words and preventing my father from achieving some sense of complete peace with his fate. I was doing this because I was more scared than he was. He needed to know we’d be fine without him and I needed to lie to him and say he had my permission to die. Well, he didn’t have my permission but I had to give it to him anyway. So I did. I went downstairs with the idea of speaking to him and giving him permission to die. I thought he would fight me when I gave him permission and he would say, “I’m not ready to go. I’ll be around next week.” Then he would have a bold look in his eye and I would know he was still ready to fight. Maybe that’s what I hoped. A part of me also thought he’d look at me and start yelling at me for wanting him dead. I could see him screaming at me, “I RAISED YOU AND NOW THINGS GET A LITTLE ROUGH, SO YOU ASK ME TO DIE SO YOU CAN MOVE ON? SCREW YOU! BY THE WAY, YOU WERE ADOPTED, WE LAUGHED AS WE PUT YOUR DOG TO SLEEP AND WE LOVED YOUR SISTER MORE THAN YOU!” Granted, he couldn’t speak too much at this point, but there was an outside chance this was the worst practical joke ever played on someone. It didn’t happen that way. He was ready to go and I spoke to him telling him it was okay to be ready. During the end of the conversation, he whispered to me, “I’m sorry for leaving you with the Braves.” One last joke about Randy Johnson’s perfect game and the Braves seeming ability to frustrate us at times. I told him it was fine, but I was lying. I preferred he did not leave me with the Braves. I went upstairs and spoke with my sister for an hour and eventually went to bed. I thought we’d have another week or so of my father around the house. It wasn't to be that way.

My father passed away the next morning at 10:34am. I was woken up and was told if I wanted to talk to him while he was still conscious I needed to do so now. So I got up and we stood by his hospital bed downstairs as he took his last few breaths. It was really sad and there was no last words really, he just slowly stopped breathing. When the funeral home came to get his body our family dog, Toby, refused to let them take my father’s body. He sat on my father’s legs and intermittently howled and barked at their attempts to take his body to the funeral home. Apparently Toby did not ever have the “It’s all right to die” conversation with my father and didn’t feel okay with it all. The funeral was planned by my father, so there wasn’t much my family had to do. It must be difficult to plan your own funeral and think the next time you see the casket you picked out, you won’t see it because you will be dead. That’s why I want to be cremated and have my ashes thrown in Kim Kardashian’s face at a social event. I figure I won’t have to be buried and can get my 15 minutes of fame after I die.

I got the opportunity to speak at my dad’s funeral. Honestly, I enjoyed it. It may sound weird, but the opportunity to speak about my father and what he meant to me was a chance I would never pass up. I spoke for 10 minutes. It didn’t feel that long and fortunately the organist did not start to play me off stage at the five minute mark. People tell me they could never speak at their parent’s funeral, but I wanted to talk for two hours. You see how much I write here. I love an audience, especially when discussing a topic close to my heart. I hated the circumstances, but I enjoyed sharing memories of my father.

Not to do much navel-gazing, but it isn’t the big events anymore where I miss him the most. You do, but for really big events I tend not to think about things like that because you are pretty busy. It is the small things you miss the most. This sounds stupid, but I really wish he could have seen the movie “Anchorman.” He would have loved that movie. I thought about him just a bit on my wedding day, not much more than that mostly because I was so focused on the ceremony going well, making sure I didn’t have to visit the restroom during the wedding (it’s the little things, but if I had to piss or crap during the wedding I can’t imagine how awkward/uncomfortable that would have been). As we all know, when life is going fast, there isn’t much time to think. The little reminders over the last 8 years are the hardest. I want him around to meet my wife, to help my mom decide between a shower door or shower curtain, to help her replace the front door and to see his grandson. If he were here I wouldn’t have to answer the question from a five year old about why his grandfather isn’t coming up to visit him with his grandmother. There's no solid answer in preparation for that question.

My mom has his office the exact same way that he left it. It doesn’t take an amateur psychologist to figure why she hasn’t packed his stuff up or cleaned the desk off. It actually sounds sad to think his stuff hasn’t been touched, but it is actually pretty disgusting. You’d be surprised at how much dust can accumulate over a few years. Even the spiders and cockroaches avoid his desk for fear their legs will get stuck in the film of dust laying over most of the objects still on his desk. The pens don’t write anymore, but still that desk is there with a book about dealing with impending death and the grief that goes along with it sitting on the left side. As far as I know, he’s the only one who ever read it. The bookcase has awkward pictures of me and my sister as we were growing up, pictures of our family, and plaques for all sorts of events/achievements. I’m not sure how he could even do any work in his office without laughing at the picture of me as a late blooming 15 year old with spots of acne on my face. Perhaps he got his laughs in when I wasn’t looking. Still, the desk sits there as a dusty memorial of sorts.

My father and I used to watch as many Braves games together as possible. He would get home from work and I would ask him if he was going to be able to watch the Braves game with me. It wasn’t a “thing” at the time, but in retrospect it sort of was a “thing.” I preferred to watch games with him more than I enjoyed watching them with my friends. Even to this day, sometimes it feels weird watching a Braves game without him around. You would think I’d be over that by now. He told me towards the end of his life he regretted we never had a beer together. Beer just tore his stomach apart by the time I got to legal drinking age and it was one of the drinks he had to avoid later in his life for that reason. I told him we did have a beer together when watching the Braves game, but just not in the literal sense. It was a terribly cheesy line, and I do realize that, but I only think of my really good lines after an hour or two of thinking about them some more.

Even 8 years after his death, I feel silly for still missing him. He’s been gone so long, so much has happened. Everyone’s moved on but you. At a certain point you tell yourself you should stop thinking about it. It sounds reasonable in theory, but hard to do in practice. When NC State made the Sweet Sixteen this year, I couldn’t help but think how excited that would have made dad. He would love Lorenzo Brown and C.J. Leslie, while being petrified Mark Gottfried was in some way cheating or working around NCAA rules to bring in his great 2012 recruiting class. We used to talk sports a fair amount and even to this day I see a sports story and think “Man, I wish I could talk about that with my dad.” Sports have tied us together permanently in that way. I will think of him during a sporting event and wonder what he would have thought.

My dad wasn’t my best friend. He was my father and of course I think he was awesome. There are many quirky/funny stories I could tell you about him, but 90% of people think that their dad is awesome and have similar stories. That’s why I will spare you these stories. I’m not Bill Simmons. I didn’t call my father after every victory or defeat waiting for him to say something funny so I can tell everyone. There’s nothing wrong with doing this, of course. He spent most of my youth working hard, I spent much of my teen years wanting to be away from any parental oversight, and I spent most of the years he had cancer in college away from home. We did play golf together quite frequently throughout college and when I was younger. So we did play sports and attend sports together. We attended Game 3 of the 1993 Conference Semifinals between the Hornets and Knicks. It was a double overtime game and probably rates as one of my top sporting events attended. It definitely rates as the loudest crowd I have ever heard live at a sporting event. I saw a replay of the game on NBA TV a few months ago and just couldn’t stop watching. While watching the game on television I kept thinking this is what cancer robbed me of, while also having a great memory of being there with my father. This is the time we would both have had to attend these sporting events. I’m out of college and he would be retired. Would we attend a bunch of sporting events together? I don’t know. It’s entirely possible, but I wish the option was still there.

I hate prostate cancer. I hate it with a passion. No one really likes cancer, so that sounds obvious. I am tied to prostate cancer in a way though. The odds of me getting prostate cancer are really, really high. My dad had it, his twin brother had it, and their father had it. Only my father died from it. So I have a good chance of surviving it if caught early enough. I am having my PSA checked every two years until I’m 40, even though my doctor says this is overkill. It doesn’t matter to me. If I am unlucky enough to receive a prostate cancer diagnosis at some point in my life though I am going to absolutely kick its ass. I’m going to kick its ass for my father, for myself, for my wife, for my sister and my mother. I will retire with my wife, meet my grandchildren, and talk sports with them until they are tired of talking to me or my mind starts to go and I become convinced Brian McCann was a pitcher. I couldn’t do anything for my father in helping him beat the disease, but I’m going to ensure it won’t defeat me the way it defeated him. This is the best way I know to honor him, knowing I was able to do anything and everything that cancer robbed him of participating in with us. I’ll take my children and grandchildren to a game and have a beer with them. Maybe I’ll even buy an extra one.

5 comments Ok, I Give Up

I accidentally posted a "Coach K v. Roy Williams" post from Bleacher Report for a few hours on Saturday evening by mistake. It was supposed to post today. Then I tried to re-post it today and completely forgot to copy and paste the whole thing leaving us with what crap I had here for a few hours that was five sentences long. What a failure on my part. Sorry about that. I will post something tomorrow. So for now, with nothing else better to write at 6pm on a Monday.........

Who do you think will win tonight and why in the BCS National Championship Game where this time, not like the first game between these same two teams, really means something?

I am taking LSU, only for the reason that I never bet against LSU and though Alabama stunk in the first game by missing many field goals I think LSU will get it done tonight because I believe their defense will end up playing better and Jordan Jefferson will play very well tonight. I don't have good reasoning other than, because on paper Alabama looks like they'll win.

So tell me who you think wins in the comments and why...if you want to of course.

8 comments TMQ: Gregg Continues His Onslaught Against Logic and Humanity- AFC Edition

Before I get to this week's AFC Preview from Gregg I want to address the beginning of my last post about TMQ. My post (and I am appreciative) got linked somewhere on the Interwebs and the linking resulted in what I wrote in regard to the whole Harrison "devil and crook" comment about Roger Goodell being briefly discussed. This section of my TMQ post wasn't terribly well-received, nor was the rest of the post for that matter, by one commenter on this specific message board. I criticize others so I can take criticism myself. I don't traditionally respond to any criticism on another blog/message board because I don't mind when people don't like what I write or disagree with me. It isn't my place to go desperately try to prove myself right or defend myself whenever someone at another site disagrees. I do want to make one point and then get on to this week's over-critical discussion of TMQ.

The one point I feel the need to respond to is for those who may think I implied timing in what Gregg wrote about Harrison's comments. I never said the players weren't reaping benefits prior to the new CBA, but the statement I was responding to wasn't talking about the previous CBA, but the new CBA. I thought that was clear, but maybe it wasn't. I will try to make my point and show I didn't imply the timing in Gregg's statement where I think he tried to mislead his audience into believing Harrison made those comments after the new CBA was reached. I will dissect what Gregg wrote in an effort to do this:

Though commissioner Roger Goodell just led a collective-bargaining negotiation that resulted in NFL players being showered with money and benefits, according to Steelers Pro Bowl linebacker James Harrison, Goodell is "a crook" and "the devil."

I don't think I implied the timing of this statement as dealing with the current CBA nor do I believe a person would go overboard to believe Harrison's comments were made after the new CBA was reached. It plainly is referring to the new CBA not the old one. Maybe my reading comprehension skills are terrible, but when words like "just led" (in reference to a collective-bargaining negotiation) and "that resulted in NFL players being showered with money and benefits" (clearly referring back to the just led collective-bargaining negotiation) I am not implying Gregg is talking about the new CBA. He is clearly talking about the new CBA in my opinion. Gregg says "Though" this collective-bargaining negotiation led to players being showered with money and benefits (again, referring to the new CBA) Harrison called Goodell "a crook" and "the devil." This statement was made before the new CBA was reached, but Gregg doesn't put this out, but I think clearly indicates it was made after the new CBA was reached. Gregg did not thing to indicate otherwise. The sentence is structured clearly to say in essence:

"Despite the fact Roger Goodell just helped sign a new CBA that led to the players getting more benefits and money, James Harrison still criticizes Goodell for being 'a crook' and 'the devil.'"

So whether the previous CBA showered players with benefits or not is irrelevant, and my point was that Gregg structured the sentence to say Harrison still criticized Goodell despite the result of the new CBA that was favorable to the players. I don't think there was much implication on my part when criticizing Gregg for playing around with facts. The sentence is structured to indicate Harrison made those comments after the CBA was agreed upon. That's what I criticized. Here is another sentence similar to what Gregg wrote which I hope further illustrates my point by taking a fictional situation which takes away the bias of having previous information (the previous information being the old CBA was also fairly good for the players). I was basing my criticism on the structure of the sentence Gregg wrote and what I believe it indicated to the reader.

Though Frank hasn't missed a child support payment in 7 years and just led the court to file a motion which resulted in him to having joint custody of his child, according to his ex-wife Margaret, he is "a deadbeat" and "not fit to have custody of his child."

For this situation, I haven't changed the important parts of the sentence that Gregg used which indicate time, merely changed the situation. Based on the structure of the sentence the implication is that Margaret is talking about Frank now and not that she made those comments 8 years earlier. A person reading this would have no idea when the comments about Frank's ability to be a father were made and so would rightfully assume they were made in the present. Gregg tied in Harrison's comments to the present CBA with the word "though" leading off the sentence, as if saying "despite what just occurred by the agreement of the new CBA," and then reinforces the time being used as the present by saying "just led." Then he uses quotes Harrison made prior to the agreement. It's misleading to the reader because I think it is clear Gregg was talking about the new CBA through the entire sentence. The only part of the sentence that dealt with the past, was Harrison's comments, which Gregg left out the time period for that. This allowed the reader to expect that Harrison had made those comments after the new CBA was reached. Gregg was intentionally vague about that time period.

Perhaps I should have been more clear with what I had written last week. We do appreciate the link for the article being shared with others even if some who read what we write don't like what we wrote. I felt the need to clear this up and I really hope I don't start a huge discussion of semantics.

Gregg Easterbrook has posted an AFC Preview for the upcoming season in his latest TMQ. What is so unique about his AFC/NFC Previews is that there is very little previewing actually undertaken. The entire column is just a retrospective of what happened with each AFC/NFC team last year with no regard for future predictions or comments for what may happen this year. Whatever works for him I guess. Still, to base what you are saying about a team on what happened in the past is a "review," not a preview. Of course accuracy in what he is writing about isn't always a quality TMQ has and maybe all previews for upcoming sports seasons are really just reviews.

Gregg thinks that some NFL teams are not trying to win the Super Bowl, but instead are trying to cut corners to make money. I don’t like this line of thinking on principle, but an NFL team is a business so it wouldn't shock me if this happened. I know we don’t like to think of it that way.

The new collective bargaining agreement adds a hard salary floor, mandating that nearly all cap space be spent each year -- as cash, not as amortization of past bonuses. This is a provision NFL players are going to like quite a bit. Fans of perennial cheapskate teams will like the provision, too.

When I think of the NFL, I just don’t immediately think of cheapskate teams. MLB teams? Yes. NBA teams? Yes. Not NFL teams though. Maybe I think of the Bengals, but mostly I think of front office incompetence in regard to them.

The result is that many NFL teams have oodles of unused cap space, yet made few if any moves in free agency.

Perhaps there weren’t players these teams wanted in free agency? Teams shouldn’t just spend money because they have it to spend. That’s a good way to end up in salary cap hell and isn’t a smart way to run a team. Smart use of salary cap space is how great teams like the Patriots and Colts have stayed on top.

Another six teams have at least $10 million unused. And cap space is not cellphone minutes. It doesn't roll over to next season.

Actually it does roll over to the next season in a way. If a team signs a player to a 5 year $30 million deal then that is money spent for the next year on the 2nd year of the player's deal. If the team decides not to sign this player to a contract then the team has the cap space for the upcoming year to spend on another free agent. So it doesn't roll over from year to year, but money not spent on a player is still vacant cap space for the next year.

The $125 million each NFL club will receive this season from the league's many national television contracts will cover player expenses, while ticket sales and local marketing cover overhead, and then some, even for small-market clubs. That leaves mucho grande greenbacks. Yet many NFL teams are not spending anywhere near as much as they could.

I agree some teams should spend more money than they currently do, but I don’t really see this as a huge problem in the future since teams are going to have to get to the salary cap floor by 2013 anyway.

I think it is completely stupid argument to argue teams should max out cap space or spend money for the sake of spending money. I can only assume a team is not spending cap space for this reason, but maybe they are being cheap. Gregg is saying teams should spend more money, but what if there aren't players they want to spend money on or this cap space is reserved for current players on the team? Managing cap space is important for a team and sometimes that includes leaving plenty of cap space for future re-signings of current players on that team.

Because most teams are in the middle of that calculation, going all-out to win with player and coaching salaries will add considerably less than $10 million in profit on packing the stadium. Contrast that with not spending up to the cap, which can add $20 million to $30 million to the bottom line. If your first goal is financial results, losing cheap can look a lot sweeter than winning expensive.

But there is a salary cap floor coming in 2013. This argument that teams should spend more money now completely ignores the reality of this. In two years, teams will have to spend money to get to this salary cap floor.

When this is taken into account, seeming nonsense suddenly makes sense. The Bengals, a low-spending team, are refusing to trade Carson Palmer, who says he retired but actually wants out of the Queen City. What's the point of getting nothing for Palmer?

I don’t know the reason the Bengals didn't trade Carson. This is the Bengals we are talking about. This is the same team a few years ago that put a clause in a few player’s contracts they couldn’t bash the team publicly. I think Gregg may misunderstand this situation. This move to not trade Palmer has nothing to do with the Bengals being cheap, but they are just being difficult with Palmer. They don’t want him dictating what happens with the team. Sure, it may not make sense, but it isn’t like the Bengals (a low spending team apparently) didn’t give Palmer a huge contract and, as far as I have heard, the dispute isn't over money. So really this has nothing to do with the discussion of money or the want of the Bengals to not spend cap space.

The point is to shed Palmer's large salary while creating an excuse for another bad season.

Not at all. The point is they wouldn’t get what they perceive to be a great amount of value for Palmer, so they want him quarterbacking their team. If they wanted to shed his salary, they would have cut him the first chance they had.

When in this situation, teams with winning mindsets shrug and trade the unhappy star for whatever they can get -- think Green Bay with Brett Favre or Philadelphia with Donovan McNabb.

This is what I am talking about with Greg misleading his audience. He gives 25% of the facts in order to trick the audience. Green Bay got good value for Favre and it helped they had a great backup in Aaron Rodgers ready to play at a high level. So they did shrug and trade Favre, but after many months of drama, and they were able to do so because they had a quality backup available. The Bengals don't have this luxury so trading Palmer may not be their best move. Also, the Eagles didn’t trade McNabb “for whatever they can get,” they got great value from the Redskins. The Redskins got ripped off in that trade, plus the Eagles had a backup they felt comfortable starting (Kolb/Vick) games for them.

Cincinnati management does not make winning its first priority.

I’m not sure overall I can argue with this.

Trading Evans makes a winning season less likely, but the odds of a profitable season go up -- and a built-in excuse is created. How long until a Buffalo team official says, "We knew we'd have an off year when we lost Lee Evans," as if he had been swept from the practice field by helicopter-borne commandos, rather than deliberately traded away.

I don’t think a Buffalo team official will ever say that. The team official may say, “We knew we’d have our typical bad year when we saw the players that were on the roster,” but I doubt they will blame the entire year on the loss of Lee Evans.

For Buffalo, this is a recent pattern. Just before the 2009 season began, the Bills waived their starting left tackle, Langston Walker, and the team's highest-paid offensive player. Two games into the 2010 season, the Bills waived their starting quarterback, Trent Edwards, their second-highest-paid offensive player. Both actions increased profits while setting up an excuse for a losing season.

Here we go again, glossing over reality for fiction. The reality is Walker wasn’t worth the money the Bills paid for him and Trent Edwards had lost his starting job and wasn’t that good of a quarterback to begin with. Teams cut underachieving players to save money, but many times this is a result of good cap management not necessarily being cheap. Gregg desperately wants us to believe these two cuts weren’t performance-related, but I think they were.

There is a way most NFL teams could enhance the bottom line while also spending freely on players: reduce front-office costs.

Does Gregg really think firing a few front office personnel is the way to cut more costs than cutting a player who makes a $1 million dollars or upwards? It is one thing to say teams are too bloated in the front office, which is true, and Gregg does a great job of pointing this out on a weekly basis. It is completely another thing to believe teams can save more money by reducing front office staff as compared to cutting NFL players.

Chicago has a chairman of the board, a secretary, a president and CEO, a general manager, seven senior directors and numerous people with the title director or manager. The team masthead lists 38 people in the front office, and that's not including clerical and sales personnel.

But yet, they could probably save more money by cutting a football player rather than 5-10 of these staff members. How does Gregg not get this? Only Gregg Easterbrook would decide a millionaire player shouldn’t get fired while middle to upper class workers are the ones who should be laid off.

One minute Gregg Easterbrook is complaining teams are too cheap and the next minute he is complaining teams aren’t cheap enough and don’t cut front office staff. So he pretty much wants to complain teams are too cheap, while also complaining teams don’t cut enough money from their expenses in order to truly be cheap. I guess if a team is going to cut payroll, Gregg wants them to do it his way and that's his real beef.

The story repeats at other NFL clubs. Revenue will be about the same whether the team wins or loses; profit will be a lot higher if salary-cap money isn't spent; family members would rather the team lose with them in cushy front-office roles than win with streamlined management.

So it isn’t the teams being cheap that is the problem, it is the way teams go about being cheap? Also, this is a moot point in two years so who really cares?

Now, Tuesday Morning Quarterback's AFC preview:

Review. It feels more like a review.

For those three years, the Ravens' offensive coordinator has been the canny, crafty, cagey Cam "Cam" Cameron, and he just hasn't put together good game plans. Last season in the playoffs, Baltimore led Pittsburgh 21-7 and had possession of the ball in the third quarter. The Ravens' next seven offensive snaps were a lost fumble, two sacks, an incompletion, 1 net yard rushing and a punt, swinging the momentum to the Steelers.

And clearly the fumbles, sacks, and incompletion were all Cam Cameron’s fault.

It was as if Pittsburgh knew the Ravens' calls; TMQ blames a predictable game plan.

Fumbles aren’t necessarily caused by a team knowing another team’s game plan. The same thing goes for sacks. The Steelers may have known the blocking assignments for the Ravens, but if the Ravens had blocked effectively and picked up the defenders this may not have mattered as much. I'm not sure this is Cam Cameron's fault.

Let’s not forget the Ravens defense gave up 14 points. It isn’t like the Ravens and their predictable game plan were losing the entire game, they were winning and the Ravens defense gave up points to lose the game.

Wearing America's colors, the Bills reached the Super Bowl four times and the playoffs six other times -- 10 of 16 seasons in that uniform were playoff years.

This season the Bills go to a retro-1970s uniform, which is better than the Rusting Russian Dreadnaught look. But why did the Bills return to a uniform style they wore when making the postseason three times in 17 years? They could have gone back to a gloried Super Bowl look based on red, white and American-flag blue –

Somebody needs to give Gregg a lesson in causation. The Bills uniforms don’t have much of an effect at all on how the team does or whether they made the postseason that year or not. This is just silly.

Making a great show of discussing how bad the previous regime's high draft pick was creates an excuse for Gailey and Nix to present a losing team in 2011 -- "What did you expect, when the guys who came before us blew the team's 2009 first-round pick?"

Again, so the Bills are supposed to keep highly paid, underachieving players on the roster? This leads to success? What world does Gregg live on?

Didn't Ohio used to be a hotbed of football culture?

Like 20 years ago.

“Didn’t Commodore computers used to be popular? What happened?”

"On April 11, 2011, The New York Times ran an ad for the Radio City Music Hall Christmas spectacular. Not only was a Christmas show being advertised before Easter, the show opens before Thanksgiving."

What? They attempt to make money BEFORE Christmas actually begins? That’s just pure madness. You would think the Radio City Music Hall Christmas spectacular would run only on Christmas Day…you know to minimize revenue and all.

This “creep” stuff Gregg does on a weekly basis shows his ignorance of how companies need to make the public aware of an event in order for the public to partake of said event more than it proves anything else about "creep" of a holiday or season.

Cleveland: The net of the Browns' spectacular draft-day deals is that Cleveland traded Julio Jones and Justin Houston for Phil Taylor, Greg Little, Owen Marecic, and Atlanta's first- and fourth-round selections in 2012. Since Little is, like Jones, a wide receiver, should Little prove to be the better player, these deals will be seen as steals.

If Little was a better receiver than Jones was an offensive lineman, then the deal would be seen as a steal since the Browns got more players than just Little back. I have to wonder how stupid Gregg believes his audience to be. Did he really just feel the need to explain out of two players, both of whom are receivers, if one of those receivers end up being better than the other that team which got the better player got a steal in the deal? Gregg must think his audience is dumber than I think I thought he thought they were.

The trouble is Cleveland can't come out ahead for at least a year, after the 2012 draft, while the long-suffering Dawg Pound must endure another season now.

Complaining a team cuts high priced players who don’t produce at a high level and not understanding long-term thinking of trading high draft picks for a quantity of picks both prove that Gregg Easterbrook lacks the ability on how to begin to build a winning NFL team. This is how the Patriots are keeping their team competitive. Gregg criticizes the Patriots for this but I am not sure it is a terrible strategy.

In the pair of memorable wins, they showed moxie. Leading the Patriots 10-0 in the first half, facing fourth-and-1 in their own territory, they went for it. So what if on the next snap, the Browns lost a fumble?

Who cares the Browns did exactly what Gregg Easterbrook encourages more teams should do and it didn’t work out? I do. If the Browns had punted and then the punt was returned for a touchdown, Gregg would say this is why the Browns shouldn’t have punted. He bases nearly all of his criticism on the outcome and doesn’t care if it was the right move if the outcome was bad. Since Gregg’s suggestion didn’t work, he gives it the whole “who cares” excuse and then decides the whole “outcome-oriented” criticism he uses for the rest of the regular season shouldn’t be used in this case.

The football gods smile on boldness.

Which is why the Browns had such a great year after beating the Patriots. Right?

This season's Texans cheerleader squad offers not one but two sets of twins, which could be male fantasy overload.

Is Gregg’s entire life a beer commercial?

“Oh man! Twin cheerleaders!” (taps beer bottles with his buddy)

A third reason is that the Colts don't panic and change their coaches and systems whenever they play a couple of bad games.

Just last year, after the Colts lost in the playoffs, Gregg was accusing the Colts offense of being too predictable and stated he thought the Colts should change things up a little. Now one of the positive attributes of the organization is they don’t change their system when they don’t experience success. As usual, Gregg wants it both ways so he can criticize as he sees fit when the outcome for the Colts isn’t positive.

I guarantee this year Gregg will say the Colts are too predictable if they start struggling, but if they don’t struggle he will continue to say they stick with what works and that is good…until it doesn’t work anymore, in which case sticking with what works is bad.

Expect big things from someone on this list: Travis Baltz, David Bedford, Chris Colasanti, Darren Evans, David Gilreath, Mike Hartline, Joe Horn, Jake Kirkpatrick, Joe Lefeged, Mike McNeill, Adrian Moten, Kerry Neal, Ollie Ogbu and Chad Spann. They are the undrafted free agents signed by the Colts. Indianapolis gets more from undrafted free agents than any other team except perhaps New England –

Gregg will go overboard with praise if one of these players turns out to be a quality NFL player and ignore the other 13-odd players failed. If one of the Colts high picks in the 2011 NFL Draft fail, we will get to hear all about that.

a reason the Patriots and Colts are Nos. 1 and 2 for most wins over the past decade.

Well, that and drafting really well over that time period, as well as being lucky enough to have/develop a franchise quarterback on the roster. Those two things have something to do with the Colts and Patriots success as well.

Two of his top four pass-catchers from last season are gone, as Rex Ryan keeps chasing whatever name is trendy on the free-agency market. This season's trendy guy is Plaxico Burress. It's great to see him back. But he's yet another target whose moves Sanchez does not know.

Gosh, if only teams could get together on a daily basis and go over what plays they plan on running in the upcoming week’s game. Perhaps the coaches could be there as well to help the players run the plays effectively. This would be a great way for Burress and Sanchez to get together and learn how to work together. If these informal get-togethers did exist, I think it would be a good idea if water was provided and the media was allowed to attend. It’s only a pipe dream though, so good luck getting to know each other Mark Sanchez and Plaxico Burress. It looks like during games is the only time you will have to do this.

Cut by the Jets, DE Shaun Ellis signed with archrival New England, causing Ryan to say, "There's no way I am going to wish him well." But New England made Ellis the best offer. If Ryan had been fired by the Jets and gone to New England because that's where the best offer was, no one would bat an eyelash. This seems to be yet another example of a pro sports double standard: If a player does what's in his best interest, he is condemned as a mercenary. If a coach does what's in his best interest, he's viewed as just taking care of business.

If Ryan got fired by the Jets and hired by the Patriots, I can guarantee you the Jets players would not want to wish him well. There would not be a double standard and Ryan would be viewed as the enemy by the Jets. I would bet the same rule would apply for Ryan as it does Ellis and there isn't as big of a double standard as Gregg believes.

Miami twice passed on Ryan Mallett, who's now in their division at New England and likely to torment the quarterback-hungry Dolphins and Bills for years to come.

Mallett is “likely” to torment the Dolphins and Bills for years to come. It’s possible, but where is the proof this is "likely?" I realize it is an opinion, but I just don't get how Mallett torturing the Bills and Dolphins for years is likely. Mallett hasn’t ever played a non-exhibition NFL game, so what basis does Gregg have to say it is likely he will torment the Dolphins? None, it’s his speculative opinion based on the fact Mallett fell in the draft and was taken by the Patriots...who by the way, we will learn in a minute are cursed because of Spygate.

Here's the deal: The New England Patriots have not won a playoff game since Spygate broke. Bill Belichick continues to refuse to say, "I cheated and I apologize." Until he does, the football gods will torment this team by allowing the Patriots to play very well during the regular season, then denying them in money time.

Earlier in the column, Gregg accuses books written about climate change of passing off the “truth” about what will happen in the future as fact when it isn’t. Gregg is easily able to notice when authors do this because he makes a habit of doing it himself. This statement isn’t “the deal.” It is a weak attempt to pass off some stupid curse put on the Patriots for Spygate as fact. Gregg may be antagonizing Patriots fans with this, but his use of Spygate to reason why the Patriots don't win the Super Bowl every year is tiresome.

the 2008 second round of the draft continues to be a tumultuous one for the wide receiver profession. Picks were either terrific or terrible.

The 2008 second round produced DeSean Jackson and Eddie Royal, both stars; Jordy Nelson, who was terrific in the Packers' Super Bowl win; and Donnie Avery and Jerome Simpson, both of whom have shown flashes.

So the 2008 second round produced receivers who were either terrific or terrible…except for Donnie Avery and Jerome Simpson, both of whom have neither really been terrific or terrible? So he disproves his very own opinion of how well wide receivers chosen in the second round of the 2008 draft have performed.

When your columnist looks at the team's 2010 stats, he zeros in on the 3-5 road record. The Bolts seemed spoiled by their city's ideal conditions, foundering elsewhere.

This wouldn’t make them the first team to struggle winning games on the road.

Big-college football and men's basketball players shouldn't be paid like NFL or NBA players -- the only way to do that would be to pay stars exclusively, while eliminating scholarships for average players. But providing a stipend is feasible and in sync with existing college customs.

Oh, so you mean working in sync with the existing college custom of college students not receiving a stipend for merely attending a school and participating in extracurricular activities?

Typically, theater stage crew members, college newspaper editors and other students receive modest stipends for their contributions to the overall atmosphere of university life.

From my experience, many times in these cases these stipends are to offset the lack of a scholarship for these students or the stipend is to be paid for services performed. These newspapers editors and theater stage crew members don’t typically receive the stipend for merely participating in a play or working for the paper. Maybe things have changed since I went to college. Also, if I remember correctly these stipends are not very large at all, so wouldn’t fit the supposed purpose put forth to help college athletes. That purpose of the stipend being to pretty much pay for that athlete’s entire cost of living while at school.

Many college athletes hail from disadvantaged backgrounds and lack walking-around money, making taking cash or gifts from boosters tempting.

Why does the school have to be the one paying the athletes? Why not let the athletes earn money on the free market while in school? College students overall lack walking-around money, which doesn’t lead many normal college students to a life of crime in order to buy beer.

If walking-around money were not a problem, temptation might be easier to resist.

I could possibly get behind this, but I don’t know if the university or the NCAA should be the one giving the athlete money.

The Eagles become the Philadelphia Heat, plus the rest of TMQ's NFC preview.

That really won’t be a “preview” of any kind. Talking about what happened last year isn’t previewing anything. At least it is better than haikus.