Saturday's Niblets from around the net for 02/28/09

Fryingpan Sports

Saturday’s Niblets from around the net.

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By Bill Smith

Best comment of the week:

By 2009 Taxes on “My impressions of the first 2 days of the NFL Combine.”

It’s good to see Robiskie do well at the combine. He came to Ohio State as a 2 or 3 star recruit out of high school and took over the starting role after Ginn and Holmes left. He’s been underestimated at every stage.

That is an excellent point. Many other great receivers have been overlooked because they didn’t have “elite” speed. Robo will become a top receiver and whatever team gets him will be able to move the chains just as OSU did. He will become indispensable on 3rd down and in the red zone.

Updates on previous articles:

Introducing the United Football League:

The UFL has raised another 30 million in seed money to go with the first 20 mil put in by the primary investors. The group now includes a familiar name Paul Pelosi—husband of the Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.

My Advice: That should give the league enough money to get started. But to field 6 teams, they will need another 50-60 million. The league should keep politics out of their way. I will try to keep you up to date on the league.

Will Vince Young ever be an NFL quality QB?

Evidently, the Titans believe that Young is not an NFL starting QB yet because they announced yesterday that they had resigned Kerry Collins to a 2 year deal. He wasn’t signed to be a backup. He had said that he would retire unless he was given assurances that he would be the starter.

My Advice: Give Young some wild cat work to get him involved in the O. That will help you find out for sure if he will ever be capable of taking over the position.

Niblets fresh off the cob:

Jerry Jones implements a gag order on the Cowboys.

Don’t think he did that to prevent leaks about the team. Don’t expect the Boys to be the HBO Hard Knocks subject this year. But don’t worry. Jones says everything in Cowboy land is just peachy.

My Advice: Jer, gag orders don’t work on teams in the 7-9 year old league, so don’t think for a minute they will work for the Boys. You lose in December because your team is a soap opera titled “As the Stomach Churns.” You don’t think that team chemistry is important and every year it blows up in your face.

NT Shaun Rogers wants out of Cleveland

According to several sources, Cleveland Browns DL Shaun Rogers has had his feelings hurt. He is so hurt that he wants the Browns not to pick up the $6 million option-bonus payment due to him next month. Rogers is owed $15 million more in guaranteed money.

He is hurt because new head coach Mangini ignored Rogers twice at the Browns practice facility in Berea. The Browns have no intention of releasing Rogers due to the hit they would take against their salary cap of more than 9.7 million.

My advice to Mangini: You need to stop the Belichick act. You haven’t won anything yet. When you have a collection of Super Bowl rings, you can snub your best players. Until then, the only thing you have in common with Belichick is that you were both fired from your first head coaching job.

My advice to Rogers: You played like a pro bowler last year and led by example. Having skin this thin below you. Forget about Mangini, the Browns fans love you and respect how hard you played last year.

Tiger Woods drops his second match.

Tiger is coming back from a really tough surgery and a 8 month break. It could be that it will take him some time to get his stamina and touch back.

My advice: Fear not Tiger fans, he will be a force come Masters time.

The Patriots are still shopping for talent at the dollar store.

The Pats added more leadership to their team (as if they needed it) by signing former Jag RB Fred Taylor. Given the injury history of Laurence Maroney this was a great move at a usual great value for the Pats. The rich get richer.

The Redskins sign Haynesworth to a 100 million dollar deal—kind of.

DT Albert Haynesworth got a 7 year 100 million deal from Redskins owner Daniel Snyder to start the free agency period off with a bang. Snyder’s record with high dollar free agents has been more thuds than bangs.

My analysis: This is not going to be typical of the deals made in the free agency period. It is a giant risk with very little up side and a huge downside. Snyder wanted to make a splash and he did. Only time will tell if his bet will pay off or if it will not.

That’s what I think. Tell me what you think.

Bill Smith is a former coach of several semi-pro teams, has officiated both football and basketball, done color on radio for college football and basketball and has scouted talent. He is a senior writer for and edits https://fryingpansports.com. He has also published several novels on and edits .

My email is [email protected].

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1 thought on “Saturday's Niblets from around the net for 02/28/09”

  1. If the new football league makes it, I would be quite surprised. When Arena football is suspended and the NFL is cutting salaries, for a new league to make money and survive is a pipe dream. Bad timing.

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