“Dollars for a Deadmen-What NFL Football has wrought”

 

 
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Suicides….Early Deaths…Crippling Injuries….Deteriorating Cognitive Skills.

 

 
Welcome to life after the NFL.

 

 
Do you know it has been over two years since the NFL and retired players reached agreement on the 935M-Concussion lawsuit, and not one penny has been paid out to ailing players or their families. Loved ones living with the trauma of watching their husbands, fathers, brothers dying a slow death.

 

 
The NFL’s Vice President on Health, taking part in a roundtable discussion with governmental leaders, NCAA officials, and health officials, said this week there is now a direct link between concussions on the field, and the CTE discovered in the brains jof deceased football players.

 

 
Boston University’s research teams have found CTE in 90-of-94 brains of deceased players, those who died normal deaths, those who died horrid deaths, those who took their own lives in suicide. Add to that, young college players, 45-of-55 on the autopsy table had CTE.

 

 
The NFL for years has been accused of looking the other way, not doing enough to protect the players, prevent these injuryies, or fund the type of medical research needed, till recently.

 

 
Many believe a coverup has part of the NFL game plan. Current NFL officials say instead, there was no medical evidence, until Boston Unviersity started doing research on deceased players in the last four years.

 

 
Now legendary linebacker Nick Buoniconti has gone public, asking the judge to reopen the settlement talks, and re-define the pay schedule for players, still alive, but suffering.

 

 
“What good is paying money to a player once he dies” was at the top of the letter? Buoniconti wants payments to players who are alive, showing cognitive suffering from Parkinsons, Alzheimers, Dementia.

 

 
Yes, players who killed themsleves, will see 4M given to their families. Those who died from cognitive diseases, upon autopsy, can receive anywhere from 2-to-5 million dependent on the disease.

 

 
But there is no money to be distributed to say, ex-Saints linebacker Steve Gleason, on death’s doorstep, with ALS. The players of the 70s, like Dave Pear of Tampa Bay, don’t get any payments now despite all the mental ailments they have.

 

 
Complicating the settlement is, there is no money goiing forward for players about to retire, who might wake up with problems at age 45 or 60.

 

 
So now the judge needs to consider the blueprint of the settlement, and whether it should be changed, because the NFL admits there is a ‘connection’, even while the word coverup is still being whispered.

 

 
It won’t make us feel any better about the way the lives of Junior Seau, Mike Webster, Dave Duerson and so many others ended.

 

 
But those still living, with post career problems, like a Gary Plummer, could be entitled to more medical funding help.

 

 
Dollars for a dead man makes no difference. Dollars to help one live out his troubled life, can.

 

 

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“Weddle’s Worth”

 

 
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What was Eric Weddle’s worth to an NFL team? Whatever the market was willing to pay him, that what it was. Not what the Chargers offered, what he demanded. No, what he could get from a team.

 

 
And so the veteran safety is officially gone. Let the true debate begin.

 

 
Weddle was valued after being drafted out of Utah. He came to play immediately. He grew as a talent, developed as a leader. He became a trustworthy employee. And then he was treated badly.

 

 
So the Chargers have moved on, importing journeyman Dwight Lowery, a self-made man, much like Weddle, to replace Weddle. Lowery has moved around, this being his 5th team in 9-years. He makes plays, he gets hurt. He will earn less, alot less, than Weddle earned.

 

 
Is he better, only time will tell. He’s much faster than Weddle, plays tough, hits people, makes tackles, seems to be a ballhawk. Weddle was steady, dependable, smart. But Weddle missed tackles, lots of them, but he was a magnet for turnovers, picks and loose footballs.  He made a ton more good plays than bad ones, always played, and was a quiet dependable leader.

 

 
Should we have gotten to this point, this ugly divorce, between a team in need, and a good citizen-player? Probably not.

 

 
Just put it in as another page in the mishandling of players and personalities by then GM-AJ Smith, and his replacement, current GM-Tom Teleseco. Neither one felt Weddle was worth the money he was seeking.

 

 
Obviously someone else did.

 

 
When the safeties first contract expired, he sought out a pay bump to about 7M per year. Smith balked, badgered, bullied. Weddle’s agent took him onto the open market.

 

 
Voila, here come the Houston Texans with a 5Y-offer that totalled 40M, an average of nearly 8M per campaign. Weddle called the club’s bluff, San Diego blinked, had to match, and paid, overpaid, for a good solid player, not a superstar player.

 

 
So he played out the contract, had good seasons, shaky seasons, and revisited the money issues again. If 8M was the final average he got, he must of expected that would be the starting point for talks in a new deal.

 

 
Never happened. Bitterness. Alienation. Distrust. The beginning of the end came with the boycott of off season workouts and a publc complain of the situation.  The end of season 10,000-fine by the club for the halftime locker room issue climaxed it.

 

 
Weddle goes back on the open market, and the same thing happens. This time Baltimore jumps in and signs him to a 4-year deal worth 26M, with 9M the first year, a pay raise, and 13M guaranteed thru years one and two.

 

 
So Weddle leaves, and takes a shot with a statement of going to a championship organization. The Ravens used to be, not any more. Just like the Chargers used to upper echelon, not any more.

 

 
We reach full circle. Weddle gets a payday, the Chargers let another good player go. The aftermath, ugly words.

 

 
Hard to say who is the bad guy here, but it never ends right with the Chargers and their stars. Trades, releases, free-agent moves, nasty comments.

 

 
A franchise that likes to preach ‘family’, sure doesn’t treat its established players very well.

 

 
If AJ hadn’t dealt with Weddle the way he did initially, maybe none of this would have happened. Maybe Telesco doesn’t value that player, nor the position as highly on the payroll chart.

 

 
What’s Weddle worth on the open market? What someone was willing to give him. That someone is Baltimore. The someone here, Chargers, didn’t believe in his value.

 

 

 

You could say this was just ‘business’ and that it wasn’t personal.  But with this franchise, it seems to wind up the latter rather than the former.

 

 
See me at the end of the season to determine who was right vs wrong? Just don’t think you keep dumping good players-people on the street like this on an annual basis, in what has become the San Diego way.

 

 

 

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“Mad at March Madness-Why?”

 

 
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Root root root for the home team. Not this time. Too many negatives surrounding San Diego State’s basketball season, coupled with a truckload of negatives about their friends in the conference.

 

 
Yes the Aztecs went (25-9), but they lost back to back games to Fresno State, including the conference championship game. End of NCAA tourney hope.

 

 
Yes, their RPI suffered, tumbling to “42” because it was such a weak Mountain West Conference season.

 

 
State beat just 1-top-50 team, the young Cal Golden Bears, very early in the season with their two fab freshman. You wouldn’t want to play the Bears now. SDSU had just 3-wins against teams in the top 100 this season.

 

 
Equally damaging, four home court losses, the dreary time in December, haunted by home losses to Arkansas Little Rock and Grand Canyon, and a (9-21) USD Toreros team.

 

 
SDSU played big time defense all season long. Number 1-in defense in points allowed for a large segment of the season. Ranked inside the top 5-for much of the year in defensive shooting percentage. Superb rebounding and shot blocking. None of that is sexy.

 

 
What they needed was sex appeal scoring with the basketball. It never really came together. Plagued by turnovers, haunted by erratic 3-point shooting, and struggling with injuries, it really disrupted the offensive continuity.

 

 
Equally troubling the fact the ‘bigs’, Angelo Chol and Skylar Spencere never ever improved their offensive games over the course of their careers. There were games the two combined for just 2-or-3 baskets over 40-minutes of play.

 

 
Veteran big man Winston Sheppard had some great nights, but an alarming number of MIA games, for someone with such experience.

 

 
The injury to 3-point artist Matt Shrigley was a real setback. He grew so much at the end of last year, then the devasting off season knee injury. He had just 1-good shooting game upon his late season return. A tough loss.

 

 
The Mountain West was a mess, but that is cyclical. New Mexico lost a bunch of veteran players last year. Colorado State got hit by NBA defections. UNLV lost games, lost recruits, lost its head coach.

 

 
They will be back and the challenge now, can Boise State and Nevada-Reno continue to elevate themselves? These other schools need to do their duty and upgrade schedules outside of the conference, and find a way to win those games.

 

 
Steve Fisher has done his job making the Aztecs elite in the conference. The rest of these coaches have to their share now to raise the awareness of the Mountain West.

 

 
No whining allowed. SDSU did not grow on offense during the season. They wasted a great defensive effort. In what really turned out to be a transition year, in the back-court, next year will be the same along the baseline.

 

 
25-wins is a nice accomplishment, just not the way we’ve come to expect a Fisher led team to finish the season. Kawahi Leonard and Jamal Russell were special, as were DJ Gay, Richie Williams and so many more.

 

 
The Aztecs will be back in the upper echelon. Let’s see if this group can put together a string of wins, and wind up at Madison Square Garden. That would be a nice bow on the 25-win season.

 

 
We expect alot out of the program now. Don’t be mad about March Madness and the selection process. Just be happy with what the product has become.

 

 

 

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“Broncos-Bad Days”

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Anyone see this coming, what has happened to the Denver Broncos?.

 

Hope they enjoyed holding up the Super Bowl Trophy 4-weeks ago, because the team is being held hostage now.

 

GM-John Elway, credited for all the right moves the last two years, the free agent spending sprees, finding people in the draft, is having a tough time accepting what has just happened.

 

In a span of 48-hours, both of his quarterbacks leave, Peyton Manning, with the emotional Monday farewell press conference, and then the defection of their supposed future star quarterback Brock Osweiler.

 

A couple of phrases to pay attention to in Denver these days. “Huge payday-Hard Feelings”, and “Short Term-Mid Level”. That’s why the Broncos are where they are this morning.

 

Osweiler bolted for an 18M a year payday with the Houston Texans, a floundering franchise, in need of lots of offensive help. The era of Matt Schaub, Arian Foster and Andre Johnson is gone. Left behind is star pass rusher JJ Watt but not much else. Thus the wild (4Y-72M) deal to Osweiler. He insulted by the Elway comment last week that included the words mid-level and short term contract, in referencing Osweiler. They offered him 13M and that was it.

 

When last seen, Osweiler had been benched as the Broncos started to falter at the end of the season. Coordinators figured him out, and the Denver offense started to go away. Manning saved them, not by winning games, just not by losing games with turnovers. The 17-picks he threw early in the season before getting hurt, were forgotten, as he engineered game winning drives without turnovers.

 

Osweiler was offended he had to wait 4-weeks before the Broncos opened contract talks. Denver didn’t talk to him at the end of last season, maybe not sure what kind of talent he really was. Sitting on the sidelines for three season didn’t give you much of a read. Forced on the field, he played well in posting a (5-2) record.

 

Hard to understand Elway not trying harder at the end of the year to get a deal done, though maybe his agent had all the leverage. Maybe Elway didn’t want to offend Manning and the tough ‘time to leave’ decision he would have to make.

 

Osweiler chaffed at the controls of Coach Gary Kubiak, the limitations on audible calls, and the insistence, we run the football here first, you throw it second.

 

 

The money is absurd, the train of thought of the quarterback is strange too, going from a comfort zone with a coaching staff who helped him develop, to the total rebuild they are facing in Houston.

 

Elway didn’t get held hostage, but he didn’t help himself with comments “we want people here, who want to be here”, quite a swipe at Osweiler.

 

But the bad days weren’t just around the quarterback. Malik Jackson jumps ship for an obscene 14M-payday, leaving behind a good defensive front, to cash checks for a woeful Jaguars franchise.

 

Linebacker Danny Trevathan goes to the Bears-relinked with the Coach who helped groom him John Fox, another loss of a true fiery leader on defense.

 

And now running back CJ Anderson, lowballed with a 1.7M-tender after 1300-yards rushing in a season and a half, signs an offer sheet in Miami, for nearly 5M per season.

 

John Elway was always calm-cool in the pocket as a quarterback, and knew what he was doing when he scrambled. Now he has to be seething in anger, his insides churning over all these defections. He no longer has as good a team as he had just a month ago this morning.

 

In fact, he has lots of holes, still has salary cap problems, and now has no real leader on offense.

 

How do you fix it?

 

Overpay for Colin Kaeperneck and hope he can fit his game into all the things Kubiak demands. Gamble on Robert Griffin III, his damaged psyche and knee in question. Deal for a Ryan Fitzpatrick, coming off a great year with the Jets, but hwo is equally likely to throw an interception as a touchdown. 1-solution could have been Chase Daniel, who just left Kansas City to go to Philadelphia. Did Elway even think about making an insurance policy call? Maybe you spend your late first round pick on a QB-like Paxton Lynch-Memphis State.

 

Some are bridge quarterbacks, some are projects, others are journeymen, one might be a raw rookie. It just does not figure to be the same team next year with whomever is driving the offense.

He likely now needs a running back and more offensive line help too. Not an easy time, in a league where you need quarterbacks to win. That quarterback-GM didn’t plan all this out very well.

 

Broncos bad days for sure, with few player left out there who can be difference makers immediately.

 

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“Chargers Get Value-Did They Fill Needs”

 
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Everybody knew where the San Diego Chargers were weak last year, in fact most people have known for a couple of years.  Can’t stop the run.  Can’t get to the quarterback.  Can’t cover consistently.  When you are ranked 30th or worst in a bunch of defensive statistics, everyone needs to be blamed.

 

 
The front office finally addressed some of those needs in day one of NFL free agency, a mini-spending spree in San Diego, very different from the wild spending sprees the Jacksonville Jaguars and New York Giants took part in.

 

 
But you have to know the philosophy of GM-Tom Telesco, spending to sign younger veterans with some upside still on their career curve, not spending foolishly on aged players headed to the twilight of their career.

 

 
Most critical was defense, and Telesco opted to bypass some bigger more costly names, notably Damon Harrison of the Jets.

 

 
The Bolts instead went for a shorter term, lower priced rental in Brandon Mebane, part of a pretty good defensive front with the Seattle Seahaws. He takes up space, ties up people at 6’1, 315, can still move, has 15-QB sacks in his career. He’s better than what they had on the roster at that spot. Keeping people off his linebackers was his job responsibility.

 

 
With the departure in the last two years of Eddie Royal, then the retirement of Malcom Floyd, and the failure of Jacoby Jones, the Chargers needed receiver help.

 

 
Travis Benjamin of Cleveland, is that and very much more. There is a consistency to his game, that wasn’t there with other guys. He had 68-catches last year, and in his four seasons with the Browns, he averaged over (15YPC). That’s impressive. So is the punt return average of (12.6) and the kick return average of (26YPKR).

 

 
He doesn’t fumble, he does create good field position, and he’s taken 3-returns back for scores. ideal for what they had to get.

 

 
Dwight Lowery is quick, tough, but really small to be a safety. He has gone from the Jets to Falcons to Colts, but does have 16-picks to his credit. More athletic than Eric Weddle, but surely not as beefy. Only time tells on this addition.

 

 
I would have preferred Browns Pro Bowl center Alex Mack, but San Diego was not willing to pay 9M a year for him. They can’t be willing to accept the play though of Trevor Robinson and Chris Watt, both who spent the season getting shoved back into the lap of thier quarterback. Maybe somebody else will show up.

 

 
They did re-sign Antonio Gates, but they lost tight end Ladarius Green to Pittsburgh. That’s a bunch of catches they’re not getting from other tight ends on the roster.

 

 
They did bring back Joe Barksdale, who was steady, and is affordable at 5M per season. But he is just a guy, and nothing more, and you will have the same issues you had the last day of the season. A poor offensive front, with lots of guys coming off injuries, and some off substandard seasons.

 

 
So day one is in the books. If I graded it out right now, Telesco gets a (B) grade, because two of the three free agents have proven they can do well at this level.

 

 
Now you have three high draft picks, and a chance to go get a quality cornerback from Florida State, Jalen Ramsey, or a big pass rusher in DeForest Buckner, or another offensive lineman, like Jason Spriggs.

 

 
It’s a good start, despite some recent past free agent failures by the Telesco-John Spanos team.

 

 
Oakland did well signing a rock solid offensive tackle and a pass rush outside linebacker. Kinechie Osemele and Bruce Irvin help alot. Give Oakland an (A)

 

 
But I guarantee you, San Diego had a better day than the Denver Broncos, who watched guys go out the door, or Kansas City, who lost two starting offensive lineman, then got slapped losing 2-draft picks for tampering with players. The Broncos, Super Bowl trophy in hand, had a (D) day….the Chiefs probably a (C) afternoon too.

 

 
1-day into their off season, the Chargers are a bit bettere now than they were before, but they have a long way to come from (4-12) to be a playoff team. They need some more good days still to come.

 

 
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