Weekend Wrapup

This past Friday, I was able to work from home since we were having the Comcast people come by to upgrade our service and join the Digital Revolution. Needless to say, with the new Digital Cable and subsequent extra 300+ channels, coupled with the NBA Playoffs, NFL Draft & Premiership matches, my weekend was pretty much set before it even started.


So as I watch Michael Owen's Newcastle comeback from injury (Owen scored a goal in the 6th minute before being called offsides, alas, the match is still scoreless as the first half comes to a close), I'll start off with condolences to Train's Blues... who squandered a chance to defend their Premiership Championship with an uninspired performance for the second week in the row, again only coming away with a draw against an inferior football club. Mourino's lineup seemed effected by the UEFA leg this week, as was ManU's starting squad with Ronaldo sitting, but the Devils were able to overcome a first half deficit with an inspired Rooney performance. Rooney now has 12 goals in his past 13 matches.

Keeping with the theme of fallen champions, in the NBA I witnessed the baby Bulls take out the hobbling and visibly over-the-hill defending NBA Champion Miami Heat, sweeping the series 4-0. Luol Deng was big throughout the series, but Ben Gordon is the key to that team. If you see Chicago continue on through the 2nd round, it'll be because of Gordon's clutch play and ability to take his man one-on-one and make key plays when the play breaks down.

Finally, not to beat Goose to the punch and give you my breakdown on the NFL Draft festivities from this past weekend, but some brief thoughts on the draft and one bold opinion on the coverage... as I was watching too many hours of the NFL Draft on Saturday and continuing into Sunday, I came to shocking revelation about 1 hour into the Draft: The NFL Network kicked the shite out of ESPN this weekend.
Sure, ESPN has Mel Kiper Jr. But that can be both an advantage and a hindrance. Kiper has an encyclopedia of knowledge about NFL Prospects since scouting college football players has been his gig for over 25+ years now. But one can only take so much of Kiper before wanting to strangle him and shave his ever growing head of hair. He's basically been reduced to a glorified team manager. You remember the guy in High School and college who couldn't make even the Junior Varsity squad but wanted to be around the sports and athletes so much that he resorted to fetching water bottles and taking detailed stats of games and practices. Well, Mel Kiper Jr. has more detailed stats than anyone. But that doesn't hide the fact that he's the biggest geek in the room.


Which leads me to the NFL Network's brilliant coverage. Each anchor and analyst knows football inside and out (with the possible exception of Rich Eisen), with no talking heads like the aforementioned Kiper and Tony Kornheiser types. The analysis was faster, and more accurate. The team needs were more clear and updated along the bottom tracker throughout the days. And the "breaking news" was literally 30-40 minutes ahead of ESPN's stories. For example, NFL Network "On-site reporter", Adam Schefter, was reporting from the Radio City Music Hall floor (where the team tables are spread about), and he reported the Cleveland trade (back up for the 22nd pick to take Brady Quinn, great recap of the details behind the deal was written today by Peter King) over 30 minutes before ESPN even mentioned it. And when the NFL had moved on after discussing the Randy Moss trade (on day 2, when New England stole a Pro-Bowler for a 4th round pick, similar to the Seahawks draft day deal, only Randy Moss doesn't drop passes), ESPN couldn't stop talking about it. ESPN basically drove me to watching the NFL Network coverage. But I couldn't have been happier about the move.

Kiper's role on the NFL Network is played by Mike Mayock. The difference is that Mayock played in the NFL. Where Kiper probably hasn't even played Madden before. Mayock had just as much knowledge about the NFL prospects, and was able to point out team needs and tendencies much more often than Kiper. It wasn't even a contest.

If you break down the match-up further with a tale-of-the-tape style, the host, analysts and reporters for the NFL Network outperformed ESPN in every category (with the notable exception of Todd McShay (who was spot on with his breakdowns leading up to the draft and during) and Seattle's own John Clayton (who still has inside knowledge on teams and deals that is unmatched). Chris Berman has three forks stuck in his back at this point, ironically bumbling & stumbling over draft pick names, still clinging to the nickname schtick, a schtick that lost it's legs at the turn of the century. That all said, ESPN has better post-draft coverage thanks to their much more robust online coverage on the dot com.

Now that I got that out of my system, the Draft itself saw big winners in Oakland (getting a QB, making quality picks and deals, plus a possible gold-mine in the healing Michael Bush from Louisville, & getting rid of the unhappy Moss), Minnesota (having Peterson drop to them at #7) and Dallas (great draft moving down the board for more picks & stealing a possible 2008 Top-10 pick in the Cleveland deal). There also were big losers with Kansas City (over half of their OL retired/left in the last 2 years yet they draft no-one of significance to help, plus kept Trent Green instead of trading him for picks even though they'll have to cut him by June for cap-purposes, just stupid moves all around & a word of warning when thinking about drafting Larry Johnson next year in Fantasy) and the Tennessee Titans (who drafted a Safety when they need a replacement for the suspended Pacman and a have glaring needs at WR and took 3 underachieving wideouts on Day 2).