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immortalization are the terms "future Hall of Famer" and "first-ballot Hall of Famer."
I'm hearing "first-ballot Hall of Famer" plenty these days with the retirements of Brett Favre, Jonathan Ogden, Michael Strahan and Warren Sapp. I'm hearing "future Hall of Famer" with the retirements of Steve McNair and Bryant Young. The Class of 2013 could be pumped up even further if Junior Seau decides he's through.
The assumption is that the latest is always the greatest, so let's rush all these guys into Canton.
In Favre's case, I'll buy it. He retired as the game's all-time leading passer with more completions, yards and touchdowns than any other quarterback in NFL history. Five years from now when he becomes eligible for Canton, Favre figures to still be atop all the passing lists.
Those are the true first-ballot guys: Favre, Jerry Rice, Emmitt Smith – players who pushed the bar so high it would take years for anyone to catch them statistically.
All other "first-ballot" candidates are matters of opinion, which makes them all subject to debate.
Strahan retired after 15 seasons with 141½ sacks. First ballot? Ask Chris Doleman his definition of a first-ballot Hall of Fame pass rusher. His statistics are better than Strahan's across the board, but he can't even get into the room for discussion by the Hall of Fame selection committee. Here's a comparison:
Player Seasons Games Sacks FF FR Int
Doleman 15 232 150½ 43 23 8
Strahan 15 216 141½ 23 14 4
(FF-Forced fumbles; FR-Fumble recoveries, INT-Interceptions)
The natural argument would be that Strahan played the strong side, where a player generally has to fight through more traffic to get to the quarterback than a weakside pass rusher like Doleman.
But that argument hasn't helped Kevin Greene. He finished his career with 160 sacks in 228 career games at his strongside linebacker spot and also can't get into the room for discussion.
Both Doleman and Greene enter their fifth year of eligibility in 2009. Both Doleman and Greene deserve discussion before Strahan. Derrick Thomas, Richard Dent and Charles Haley also belong in the queue ahead of Strahan.
Warren Sapp was an all-decade tackle for the 1990s. So was Bryant Young. But so was Cortez Kennedy. Young went to five Pro Bowls, Sapp eight and Kennedy eight. Sapp was the NFL Defensive Player of the Year in 1999. So was Kennedy in 1992. Yet Kennedy has never been a finalist in his four years of eligibility.
McNair took a team to the Super Bowl and was an NFL MVP. Ken Anderson also took a team to the Super Bowl and was an NFL MVP. Anderson went to twice as many Pro Bowls (four) than McNair (two). He also threw for more yards (32,838) and more touchdowns (197) than McNair (31,304 and 174). Anderson has been a finalist twice and been rejected twice.
Jonathan Ogden went to 11 Pro Bowls. So did guard Randall McDaniel, who was bounced in his first trip to the finals last February.
Junior Seau went to 12 Pro Bowls in his 18 NFL seasons. Les Richter played nine NFL seasons (1954-62) as a linebacker and went to eight Pro Bowls. He was once traded for 11 players. Yet he's never been discussed by the Hall of Fame selection committee. Maxie Baughan went to nine Pro Bowls in the 1960s. He also has never been discussed.
The latest doesn't always translate into the greatest. Labeling any player a "future Hall of Famer" or "first-ballot Hall of Famer" is a disservice to those who have already earned their way into Canton with those designations.
Slow movement
With each passing season, NFL teams are opting to hang on to what they have.
For the third consecutive year, the number of primary starters leaving NFL teams in the off-season has declined. A primary starter is defined as a player who started at least half of his team's games the previous season or was forced from the lineup with a season-ending injury.
Only 101 primary starters in 2007 moved on this off-season, down from the 109 of 2006. That was down from the 119 of 2005 and 133 of 2004. Of the 101 that departed this off-season, nine retired, nine were traded, 39 were free agents and 44 were salary-cap casualties.
Only two teams did not lose any starters from 2007, Cleveland and Washington. The Commanders, though, must replace Pro Bowl safety Sean Taylor, who suffered a fatal gunshot wound in a home invasion last November.
Carolina and Miami were tops with seven departing starters apiece. There are 704 starters in the NFL. The departure of 101 of them represents a 14 percent turnover in NFL lineups in 2008.
Among the departing starters were seven Pro Bowlers. QB Brett Favre (Green Bay) and OT Jonathan Ogden (Baltimore) retired, G Alan Faneca (Pittsburgh) and CB Asante Samuel (New England) left in free agency, FBs Lorenzo Neal (San Diego) and Tony Richardson (Minnesota) were cut, and DE Jared Allen (Kansas City) was traded. Allen led the NFL in sacks last season.
■ Five teams said good-bye to their leading rushers: Shaun Alexander at Seattle, Cedric Benson of Chicago, Warrick Dunn at Atlanta, Deshaun Foster at Carolina and Kevin Jones at Detroit.
■ Three teams parted ways with their leading receivers: Bernard Berrian of Chicago, Marty Booker of Miami and Ernest Wilford of Jacksonville.
■ Three teams lost their leading sackers: Allen, Shaun Rogers at Detroit and Bryant Young at San Francisco.
■ Three teams lost their leading interceptors: Samuel, DeAngelo Hall at Atlanta and Dwight Smith at Minnesota.
■ Three teams lost their left offensive tackles: Ogden, Matt Lepsis at Denver and Barry Sims at Oakland.
■ One team lost its leading tackler (Landon Johnson at Cincinnati), two teams lost their No. 2 tacklers (Takeo Spikes at Philadelphia and Gibril Wilson at the Giants) and two teams lost their No. 3 tacklers (Von Hutchins at Houston and Kenoy Kennedy at Detroit).
Here's a scorecard of starters lost this off-season:
<snipped>
All this is just one more reason to like the Browns in 2008. Everyone is back from a 10-6 team that beefed up its roster with the off-season additions of WR Donte Stallworth and DTs Shaun Rogers and Corey Williams. Stallworth and Williams started on teams that hosted conference championship games last January, and Rogers is a two-time Pro Bowler.
Another scorecard
RB Cedric Benson, Carolina WR Dwayne Jarrett, Tennessee DE Jevon Kearse, Seattle LB Lofa Tatupu and Atlanta S Daren Stone all were arrested on suspicion of DUI this off-season, Buffalo RB Marshawn Lynch pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor hit-and-run, Arizona RB J.J. Arrington was arrested on disorderly conduct charges stemming from a bar fight, and Denver WR Brandon Marshall and former Pittsburgh WR Cedrick Wilson were booked on battery charges following incidents involving their girlfriends.
The Cleveland Browns also had a better off-season than the NFL's code of conduct.
Classy exit
Last month, actress Katherine Heigl turned down an Emmy nomination because she did not believe her work merited consideration for the award. She said she elected not to compete for the television honor "in an effort to maintain the integrity of the academy organization."
Some NFL players ought to take her cue and turn down Pro Bowl selections when their play doesn't merit the honor. A handful of players go annually on their names, not their playing abilities. They know who they are. Reject the honor, do not take credit for a Pro Bowl selection and let someone more deserving go in your place, just like Heigl. It's time the NFL injected a little integrity into its Pro Bowl process.
Seat options
In case you missed it, the New York Giants unveiled the pricing structure for their new stadium, which will open in 2010. Capacity will be 82,500, and every seat will be tied to a personal seat license (PSL). That's a one-time payment by a season-ticket holder for the right to purchase a game ticket.
The PSLs will range from $1,000 to $20,000 per seat. The Giants said PSLs were necessary to help finance the $1.6 billion project. The Giants said fewer than 5,000 seats in the new stadium will command that $20,000 PSL, and that 90 percent of the tickets in the upper deck will carry a $1,000 PSL.
Contrast that to the Cowboys, whose new 80,000-seat stadium opens in 2009. The Cowboys also decided seat licenses were necessary to help finance their $1.1 billion project. Their seat licenses range from $2,000 to $150,000.
There are essentially five levels at the new Arlington stadium: lower deck, club, loge, suites and upper deck. If you want one of the 15,000 seats in the lower bowl between the sidelines, designated as "club" seats, the minimum PSL is $16,000. A clump of seats on the 50 in the lower club level carry that $150,000 price tag.
The 1,200 loge seats command a $12,000 PSL. A seat in the lower deck in the corner of the end zone commands a $5,000 PSL, as does a seat in the upper deck at midfield.
The PSLs for the New York stadium are a one-time shot. The PSLs for the Arlington stadium have a 30-year lease. Makes you wonder which team won the Super Bowl last season ...
Summer travel
I just started plotting my summer training camp schedule. As usual, I'll start off the summer with a swing through the East and visits to the Commanders, Eagles and Giants. My second leg will take me to Canton for the Hall of Fame weekend plus a swing through Ohio and the Midwest. My third and final leg will take me to Florida to visit the three NFL entries there.
If the Super Bowl were played tomorrow
The Browns are one of only six NFL teams that have never been to a Super Bowl. So let's send Cleveland to the 2008 NFL championship game against the defending champion New York Giants. Go ahead, skewer me. But my loyal readers/e-mailers also skewered me last November when I forecast a Giants-Patriots Super Bowl in this same Internet space. That's what makes the NFL so intriguing – nothing is ever as obvious as it seems. As we sit here the opening week of July, there are probably 20 teams that believe they can be in Tampa next February playing for an NFL title. The Browns and Giants are certainly two of them.
Final thought
There are, however, four teams that even the NFL does not believe have a shot to reach the Super Bowl: Atlanta, Kansas City, Miami and St. Louis. Those are the only four teams that were not scheduled any prime-time national television games this season. There are four prime-time slots: Thursday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday. Only one NFL team was assigned to play on all four of those days – the Cowboys.
http://www.***BANNED-URL***/s/dws/n.../stories/070108dnspogosselinjuly.2484550.html
I'm hearing "first-ballot Hall of Famer" plenty these days with the retirements of Brett Favre, Jonathan Ogden, Michael Strahan and Warren Sapp. I'm hearing "future Hall of Famer" with the retirements of Steve McNair and Bryant Young. The Class of 2013 could be pumped up even further if Junior Seau decides he's through.
The assumption is that the latest is always the greatest, so let's rush all these guys into Canton.
In Favre's case, I'll buy it. He retired as the game's all-time leading passer with more completions, yards and touchdowns than any other quarterback in NFL history. Five years from now when he becomes eligible for Canton, Favre figures to still be atop all the passing lists.
Those are the true first-ballot guys: Favre, Jerry Rice, Emmitt Smith – players who pushed the bar so high it would take years for anyone to catch them statistically.
All other "first-ballot" candidates are matters of opinion, which makes them all subject to debate.
Strahan retired after 15 seasons with 141½ sacks. First ballot? Ask Chris Doleman his definition of a first-ballot Hall of Fame pass rusher. His statistics are better than Strahan's across the board, but he can't even get into the room for discussion by the Hall of Fame selection committee. Here's a comparison:
Player Seasons Games Sacks FF FR Int
Doleman 15 232 150½ 43 23 8
Strahan 15 216 141½ 23 14 4
(FF-Forced fumbles; FR-Fumble recoveries, INT-Interceptions)
The natural argument would be that Strahan played the strong side, where a player generally has to fight through more traffic to get to the quarterback than a weakside pass rusher like Doleman.
But that argument hasn't helped Kevin Greene. He finished his career with 160 sacks in 228 career games at his strongside linebacker spot and also can't get into the room for discussion.
Both Doleman and Greene enter their fifth year of eligibility in 2009. Both Doleman and Greene deserve discussion before Strahan. Derrick Thomas, Richard Dent and Charles Haley also belong in the queue ahead of Strahan.
Warren Sapp was an all-decade tackle for the 1990s. So was Bryant Young. But so was Cortez Kennedy. Young went to five Pro Bowls, Sapp eight and Kennedy eight. Sapp was the NFL Defensive Player of the Year in 1999. So was Kennedy in 1992. Yet Kennedy has never been a finalist in his four years of eligibility.
McNair took a team to the Super Bowl and was an NFL MVP. Ken Anderson also took a team to the Super Bowl and was an NFL MVP. Anderson went to twice as many Pro Bowls (four) than McNair (two). He also threw for more yards (32,838) and more touchdowns (197) than McNair (31,304 and 174). Anderson has been a finalist twice and been rejected twice.
Jonathan Ogden went to 11 Pro Bowls. So did guard Randall McDaniel, who was bounced in his first trip to the finals last February.
Junior Seau went to 12 Pro Bowls in his 18 NFL seasons. Les Richter played nine NFL seasons (1954-62) as a linebacker and went to eight Pro Bowls. He was once traded for 11 players. Yet he's never been discussed by the Hall of Fame selection committee. Maxie Baughan went to nine Pro Bowls in the 1960s. He also has never been discussed.
The latest doesn't always translate into the greatest. Labeling any player a "future Hall of Famer" or "first-ballot Hall of Famer" is a disservice to those who have already earned their way into Canton with those designations.
Slow movement
With each passing season, NFL teams are opting to hang on to what they have.
For the third consecutive year, the number of primary starters leaving NFL teams in the off-season has declined. A primary starter is defined as a player who started at least half of his team's games the previous season or was forced from the lineup with a season-ending injury.
Only 101 primary starters in 2007 moved on this off-season, down from the 109 of 2006. That was down from the 119 of 2005 and 133 of 2004. Of the 101 that departed this off-season, nine retired, nine were traded, 39 were free agents and 44 were salary-cap casualties.
Only two teams did not lose any starters from 2007, Cleveland and Washington. The Commanders, though, must replace Pro Bowl safety Sean Taylor, who suffered a fatal gunshot wound in a home invasion last November.
Carolina and Miami were tops with seven departing starters apiece. There are 704 starters in the NFL. The departure of 101 of them represents a 14 percent turnover in NFL lineups in 2008.
Among the departing starters were seven Pro Bowlers. QB Brett Favre (Green Bay) and OT Jonathan Ogden (Baltimore) retired, G Alan Faneca (Pittsburgh) and CB Asante Samuel (New England) left in free agency, FBs Lorenzo Neal (San Diego) and Tony Richardson (Minnesota) were cut, and DE Jared Allen (Kansas City) was traded. Allen led the NFL in sacks last season.
■ Five teams said good-bye to their leading rushers: Shaun Alexander at Seattle, Cedric Benson of Chicago, Warrick Dunn at Atlanta, Deshaun Foster at Carolina and Kevin Jones at Detroit.
■ Three teams parted ways with their leading receivers: Bernard Berrian of Chicago, Marty Booker of Miami and Ernest Wilford of Jacksonville.
■ Three teams lost their leading sackers: Allen, Shaun Rogers at Detroit and Bryant Young at San Francisco.
■ Three teams lost their leading interceptors: Samuel, DeAngelo Hall at Atlanta and Dwight Smith at Minnesota.
■ Three teams lost their left offensive tackles: Ogden, Matt Lepsis at Denver and Barry Sims at Oakland.
■ One team lost its leading tackler (Landon Johnson at Cincinnati), two teams lost their No. 2 tacklers (Takeo Spikes at Philadelphia and Gibril Wilson at the Giants) and two teams lost their No. 3 tacklers (Von Hutchins at Houston and Kenoy Kennedy at Detroit).
Here's a scorecard of starters lost this off-season:
<snipped>
All this is just one more reason to like the Browns in 2008. Everyone is back from a 10-6 team that beefed up its roster with the off-season additions of WR Donte Stallworth and DTs Shaun Rogers and Corey Williams. Stallworth and Williams started on teams that hosted conference championship games last January, and Rogers is a two-time Pro Bowler.
Another scorecard
RB Cedric Benson, Carolina WR Dwayne Jarrett, Tennessee DE Jevon Kearse, Seattle LB Lofa Tatupu and Atlanta S Daren Stone all were arrested on suspicion of DUI this off-season, Buffalo RB Marshawn Lynch pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor hit-and-run, Arizona RB J.J. Arrington was arrested on disorderly conduct charges stemming from a bar fight, and Denver WR Brandon Marshall and former Pittsburgh WR Cedrick Wilson were booked on battery charges following incidents involving their girlfriends.
The Cleveland Browns also had a better off-season than the NFL's code of conduct.
Classy exit
Last month, actress Katherine Heigl turned down an Emmy nomination because she did not believe her work merited consideration for the award. She said she elected not to compete for the television honor "in an effort to maintain the integrity of the academy organization."
Some NFL players ought to take her cue and turn down Pro Bowl selections when their play doesn't merit the honor. A handful of players go annually on their names, not their playing abilities. They know who they are. Reject the honor, do not take credit for a Pro Bowl selection and let someone more deserving go in your place, just like Heigl. It's time the NFL injected a little integrity into its Pro Bowl process.
Seat options
In case you missed it, the New York Giants unveiled the pricing structure for their new stadium, which will open in 2010. Capacity will be 82,500, and every seat will be tied to a personal seat license (PSL). That's a one-time payment by a season-ticket holder for the right to purchase a game ticket.
The PSLs will range from $1,000 to $20,000 per seat. The Giants said PSLs were necessary to help finance the $1.6 billion project. The Giants said fewer than 5,000 seats in the new stadium will command that $20,000 PSL, and that 90 percent of the tickets in the upper deck will carry a $1,000 PSL.
Contrast that to the Cowboys, whose new 80,000-seat stadium opens in 2009. The Cowboys also decided seat licenses were necessary to help finance their $1.1 billion project. Their seat licenses range from $2,000 to $150,000.
There are essentially five levels at the new Arlington stadium: lower deck, club, loge, suites and upper deck. If you want one of the 15,000 seats in the lower bowl between the sidelines, designated as "club" seats, the minimum PSL is $16,000. A clump of seats on the 50 in the lower club level carry that $150,000 price tag.
The 1,200 loge seats command a $12,000 PSL. A seat in the lower deck in the corner of the end zone commands a $5,000 PSL, as does a seat in the upper deck at midfield.
The PSLs for the New York stadium are a one-time shot. The PSLs for the Arlington stadium have a 30-year lease. Makes you wonder which team won the Super Bowl last season ...
Summer travel
I just started plotting my summer training camp schedule. As usual, I'll start off the summer with a swing through the East and visits to the Commanders, Eagles and Giants. My second leg will take me to Canton for the Hall of Fame weekend plus a swing through Ohio and the Midwest. My third and final leg will take me to Florida to visit the three NFL entries there.
If the Super Bowl were played tomorrow
The Browns are one of only six NFL teams that have never been to a Super Bowl. So let's send Cleveland to the 2008 NFL championship game against the defending champion New York Giants. Go ahead, skewer me. But my loyal readers/e-mailers also skewered me last November when I forecast a Giants-Patriots Super Bowl in this same Internet space. That's what makes the NFL so intriguing – nothing is ever as obvious as it seems. As we sit here the opening week of July, there are probably 20 teams that believe they can be in Tampa next February playing for an NFL title. The Browns and Giants are certainly two of them.
Final thought
There are, however, four teams that even the NFL does not believe have a shot to reach the Super Bowl: Atlanta, Kansas City, Miami and St. Louis. Those are the only four teams that were not scheduled any prime-time national television games this season. There are four prime-time slots: Thursday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday. Only one NFL team was assigned to play on all four of those days – the Cowboys.
http://www.***BANNED-URL***/s/dws/n.../stories/070108dnspogosselinjuly.2484550.html
