Whipped Cream Difficulties

WCD got into it a bit last week with Lawrence over the merits of the NFL draft. It is our position that the draft just really isn’t that important to NFL teams. We do not dismiss the draft totally; a team may get lucky and pick up, say, an Earl Campbell. But teams are just as likely to get lucky and pick up, say, a JaMarcus Russell. Our belief is that good coaching, good team building, and good player selection (remember, players don’t have to come from the draft; undrafted unwanted free agents that do surprisingly well are an ongoing TMQ trope) are more important than draft choices.

With that introduction out of the way, let’s jump into TMQ’s annual “mock the mock drafts” column.

As you’d expect, TMQ starts out with a meditation on the NFL’s current labor struggles. We appreciate a good Barbara Tuchman reference as much as the next guy (assuming the next guy is literate), but we are curious about this reference in TMQ’s column:

…American taxpayers with a median household income of $53,000 can stop subsidizing federal courtroom time for wealthy crybabies to shout at each other.

Specifically, we find it curious that TMQ views the use of the court system to settle disputes between parties as a “subsidy” for “wealthy crybabies”, rather than as a use of the court system for what it was designed for. Or perhaps TMQ believes that if the NFL and players were not in court, judges, clerks, bailiffs, and other court personnel wouldn’t be paid and we’d be saving piles of money? Or does TMQ believe that if the NFL wasn’t in court, perhaps the system would be able to deal faster with more important issues, like class-action lawsuits over the PSN breach?

TMQ goes on to take the position that (and we’re summarizing considerably here) the owners are unhappy because they didn’t get everything they wanted in 2006, and are thus out for revenge against the players. The owners, as TMQ sees it, plan to get this revenge by crushing the union, using the same tactics and same negotiator that worked so well for the National Hockey League. Meanwhile, the players are represented by someone whose primary background is as a litigator, rather than a player; thus, TMQ sees the entire lockout as an issue between two individuals looking for conflict.

The path to a solution: First, the dispute must get out of the courts. It’s embarrassing for NFL players and owners to expect taxpayers to subsidize their petty bickering. Player reps and owners need to look each other in the eye and settle their differences. The goal of the lawyers on both sides is to prevent the settling of differences — and the lawyers will look out for themselves financially, thank you, as everyone else is shafted.

Gee whiz. Thank you, Captain Obvious. And again with the “subsidy” thing, Gregg?

WCD is not going to go item by item through TMQ’s “mock of mock drafts“. This is basically a humor column, and like any other humor column, is hit and miss. We see no reason to dissect this frog. We will make the following observations:

• Shut the f— up about “Friday Night Lights” already.
• We had not previously looked at any of the photos of the new Wonder Woman. By the holy claws of Klortho the Magnificent, that is an ugly costume.
• “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark” bashing! And, unlike WCD, TMQ has seen it! (Or, at least, a preview: #114, to be exact.) Speaking of “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark”, WCD commends to your attention this piece from Overthinking It: “What We Talk About When We Talk About ‘Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark’“, which touches on some interesting issues. (Is the reaction to Taymor’s work sexist resentment by comics fans of a woman invading their territory? Or is because her work is moronic? Does the publicity over the amount of money spent have something to do with the negative reaction? Would people be more receptive if less than $65 million had been spent. (Daymn, but that Green Goblin costume looks like it was cobbled together out of stuff from the dollar store.) Is the title just horrific?) Actually, WCD commends much of what’s on Overthinking It to your attention, including this fantastic piece about the “Clone Wars” series (“…this is a show for children about a war which will end with the good guys getting shot in the back by their own soldiers.”) and “The Economics of Death Star Planet Destruction“. (Yes, there is more to the site than “Star Wars”.)
• Good on ye, Matt Hoffman.

“Count the Cam Newton Red Flags“. Interesting stat:

Of the 11 BCS title-winning quarterbacks to enter the NFL, all were hot stuff in college; nine did little in the pros: Tee Martin, Chris Weinke, Josh Heupel, Ken Dorsey, Craig Krenzel, Matt Mauck, Matt Leinart, Chris Leak, Matt Flynn. The 10th, Tebow, has been in the NFL only one season; the sole (albeit current free agent) NFL quarterback with both a BCS title and a solid pro career is Vince Young.

WCD is going to go out on a limb and predict that Cam Newton will be this year’s Ryan Leaf.

More “Friday Night Lights“. Growl.

TMQ has mixed feelings about connecting “Spirit in the Sky” with football, since the subject of Greenbaum’s song is being judged by God…there was something strange in the Nike commercial highlighting lyrics that suggest military-age young men can find glory in death, while avoiding lyrics that mention history’s greatest pacifist.

Interesting. WCD has never interpreted the song as about “being judged by God”, but as a song about the hope for an afterlife, sung by someone who is confident that there is an afterlife, and confident about their relationship with God/Jesus/the great spirit in the sky. We are unclear as to where in the lyrics TMQ picks up the idea that the song “glorifies” death, as opposed to simply stating death is a fact, but there hope for an afterlife. All lyrics sites suck rocks, but we’ll put this link out there so our readers can judge for themselves. Feel free to tell us we’re full of it in the comments.

High school football safety. Not much to argue with here, except possibly the question of parental responsibility (which goes unaddressed).

If the new labor agreement limits bonuses for first-round draft choices, where should the money go? TMQ argues that it should go to players lower in the draft order.

Nobody succeeds in the NFL without good players from low in the draft, or undrafted. The Packers — who started undrafted Frank Zombo, Cullen Jenkins and Tramon Williams in their Super Bowl win — can attest to that.

We can’t argue with that. We just wanted to highlight the Frank Zombo reference. Of course, Frank Zombo has nothing to worry about; if his NFL career falls apart, he still has his website to fall back on.

J’Marcus Webb, drafted in the seventh round, started for the Bears last season and was a reason they reached the NFC title game. Should Bears quarterback Jay Cutler, a high first-round choice, really have received a bonus 400 times larger than Webb? Cutler may be worth more. He’s a quarterback — a plumber is worth more than a cab driver, too. But 400 times more?

Tell you what, Greggles. You go out and try to sell tickets for the Bears games using only J’Marcus Webb. We’ll go out and try to sell tickets using Jay Cutler. Winner buys the loser dinner at Alinea.

Of course Gregg won’t take that bet (nor is it a serious bet) but it illustrates our point: marquee players bring in ticket and concession sales. Low round draft picks, no matter how good they are at supporting their teammates, don’t bring in the bucks (unless they become breakout stars on their own).

Many who end up in the sixth and seventh rounds were college stars. For them to receive a token $50,000 or $75,000 as their only income ever from the football establishment, while first-round choices are showered in huge amounts of money, isn’t fair.

It’s not fair that we have to get up five days a week and go to work, either. Society should subsidize our blogging. And give us a Bentley to drive. A solid-gold rocket powered one. And sparkly unicorn ponies that poop rainbows.

We do agree with TMQ’s suggested “moneyball” approach to undrafted free agents. But if this makes economic sense, some NFL team will try it at some point. We tend to believe that team owners are rational actors. (Okay, Al Davis may be an exception. And the Ford family. And “Chainsaw” Dan Snyder. Maybe we need to rethink that belief.)

Reader Peter Backof of Washington, D.C., made graphs of recent NFL draft results. What jumps out is his graph of Pro Bowl appearances since 2000. The “undrafted” category produced as many Pro Bowlers as the second round, and more Pro Bowlers than the third, fourth, fifth, sixth or seventh rounds.

We wanted to highlight this as well, as it sort of feeds back into how this all started; our argument with Lawrence about the importance of the draft.

Tune in next week, when we’ll hear Gregg Easterbrook call local police forces a subsidy for wealthy property owners at the expense of the urban poor.

This entry was posted on Friday, April 29th, 2011 at 9:29 pm and is filed under NFL, Sports, TMQ watch. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.