Broncos' Josh McDaniels Fired Before Season?

Okay, rookie head coach Josh McDaniels, so you totatlly blew the Jay Cutler situation. It's cool, franchise-caliber QBs come and go.

Pat Bowlen, the Broncos owner, put a lot of faith in his new GM, Brian Xanders, though Bowlen himself kept the reins.

This is Xanders.

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Yeah. Maybe the Danny Snyder-Vinny Cerrato pederasty isn't so bad after all.

Since the Broncos fired Shanahan, this has happened:

--Rookie head coach tries to trade for NE backup QB, fails.

--Franchise quality QB freaks out

--Rookie head coach fails to calm franchise quality QB and trades him to Chicago for Kyle Orton

--Broncos have RBs Selvyn Young, Correll Buckhalter, Lamont Jordan, Peyton Hillis, J.J. Arrington and Ryan Torain already under contract.

--Broncos draft RB Knowshown Moreno out of Georgia (Terrell Davis, Olandis Gary)

--Broncos draft LB Robert Ayers (and this would be the silver lining)

--Broncos trade FIRST ROUND MOTHERFUCKING PICK (which looks to be a high one) in 2010 for Seahawks' 5th pick in the 2nd round.

Yes, that's right. The Broncos decided to upgrade one of the league's most explosive offenses (Royal, Marshall, Scheffler, Cutler and Denver RB) by trading Cutler for a lesser quantity and drafting yet another RB to fill out the other six.

Then they traded next year's first rounder.

I am not sure Josh McDaniels will coach a single game as an NFL head coach. This has been the biggest debacle offseasons of all offseasons.

And seriously, look at the picture above, Jason Giambi and Roger Clemens fucked and made Brian Xanders? That's hideous.

NFL Draft Prediction - Boldin, Leinart to Skins

All the buzz running up to this year's draft is about where, if anywhere, Anquan Boldin will land. Here is my fearless, incorrect, prediction:

The Redskins will trade Jason Campbell and a pick for Anquan Boldin and Matt Leinart.

But, you say, the cap hit would be tremendous! Snyder has already made it clear with his signing of Haynesworth and DeAngelo Hall that he is planning on an uncapped 2010 season. He can fit Boldin and Leinart under the cap in that scenario, if I understand the implications of trading on the salary cap.

If the Eagles or Ravens jump ahead of the Skins' offer, or if the Cardinals get skittish and fit Boldin in, the Redskins will make a similar move to bring in Chad Johnson. They're coming away with one of those two receivers today.

That's my fearless, likely incorrect, prediction.

Idol Recap 4/21/09

At this point it's really only a race between six contestants to see who is going to be the person to compete against Adam in the finals. If you listen to the judges, Danny is preordained. I'm not so sure.

Tonight the judges all talked. Either Idol actually listened to the public, or Simon threatened to leave the show immediately if his ego wasn't sufficiently fed.

No celebrity guest mentor tonight. So the Idol producers decided that they'd want to waste more of the public's time listening to Randy and Paula after each performance than listening to a guest mentor give vanilla faux-critique of a contestant and then seeing that contestant totally disregard the mentor's advice. Come on, there's gotta be some celebrity out there peddling something. Hell, last week Tarantino got to be a guest mentor. I'll bet the Shamwow guy is available.

So we start of with Lil Rounds. I have no recollection of what she sang except for that it sounded like somebody at a wedding and she was wearing a horrible black body suit that looked like a Halloween costume and showed off the biggest ass left in the competition since Lakisha Jones.

We move on to Kris Allen, who gave a game-changing performance and arrangement along the lines of Adam Lambert. And David Cook. He took a song that we all know, totally stripped it down but retained the heart and soul of the song but in a different format. Kris looked like he positively wanted to kill the judges who totally took away from his performance by turning his critique into a discussion about cross-dressing. But Kris is my darkhorse candidate to unseat Danny and be the surviving member of the 6 to face off against Adam in the finals.

Up next is the aforesaid Danny Gokey, who is the is the most overrated contestant left in the competition, surviving only by the cougar vote and the fact that the judges feel the need to constantly remind us that we're going to see him in the finals. He's getting slightly annoying, each week is beginning to sound exactly the same, is giving off the vibe that he's totally full of himself which isn't really good in a nationwide popularity contest, and oh yeah, sounds like a poor man's Michael McDonald in every single performance.

Next up, in way too much leather is Allison Iraheta. I've loved Allison for a long time but was very underwhelmed by this performance. If you're going to slow down a song, really slow it down like Adam or Kris did. Don't make it lukewarm and forgettable. Allison's got a powerhouse voice and she hit all the big notes. But at the end, none of us really remember it. If she's the girls' only hope left, the girls have no hope to win.

Then we get to Adam Lambert, who will make every person reach for the volume button on their remote control every week. This week it's to turn him up. Every week I remind everyone I'm not a huge Adam fan and I'm not. I really don't want him to win. But I gotta give him credit for this performance, a beautiful arrangement of a classic that featured spot-on vocals and tremendous amounts of passion. Nothing more to say, aside from noting, for the record, that when Paula is all alone in her hotel room tonight, with nothing but her and her battery operated friends, based upon her look during Adam's performance, we know what she's going to be thinking about.

Matt Giraud is up next. If your money was on Matt to be the guy who did the BeeGees tonight in a cheesy, campy performance, you're a big winner. Decent dance moves in a singing competition doesn't quite add up. And it doesn't come any more cliched than Stayin' Alive on disco night. Except for maybe Lil's performance. Which should say something about what Matt's hopes are. About the only thing that will keep Matt in the competition is if people decide to vote Anoop out. Otherwise, he's in some serious danger again, and there's no judge's toy that will keep him around.

The night concludes with Anoop Desai. So in the spirit of the season, Anoop is growing his Stanley Cup beard. Nicely done, friend. Either that, or he's trying to look less like the Bollywood actor who was the cop in Slumdog Millionaire and the father in The Namesake. At the end of the day, Anoop seems like one of the nicest guys to ever have been in this competition, is definitely one of the smartest, but what tonight's performance boils down to is a one trick pony trying to mask the fact that he craves safety in the ballad by going ever-so-slightly up tempo for only part.

Predicted Bottom Three:
Lil Rounds
Matt Giraud
Anoop Desai

Jason Campbell Deserves Better Than the Redskins

We all know the Redskins front office is incompetent and the fans are fickle, but the way they have treated Jason Campbell is awful. 

The Skins are like the bad boyfriend with a wandering eye.  They swear up and down that Campbell is the future of the franchise, but every time some hot piece of ass (I’m looking at you, Jay Cutler) is available they’re ready to throw Jason’s stuff out on the lawn.  When it doesn’t work out with the greener grass on the other side, they patch things up with Campbell and the process repeats itself.

First, some history: when Campbell was drafted (in 2005 - the other 1st round QBs were Alex Smith and Aaron Rodgers), Skins fans treated him like the second coming (as they do for almost every high draft pick).  For his first year and a half, the big debate was “Is he ready?”  Gibbs named him the starter halfway through his second season, and he’s only missed 3 starts due to injury.

Let’s take a look at his stats:

Year	Games	Yards	Comp%	TD	Int	Rat
2006	7	1,297	53.1	10	6	76.5
2007	13	2,700	60.0	12	11	77.6
2008	16	3,245	62.3	13	6	84.3

 

Those look like the stats of an improving young QB.  I know the Campbell haters will claim that his stats from last year are misleading because he got off to a great (lucky?) start and finished the season in more pedestrian fashion.  I think they’re just looking for an excuse to bash the guy.

Since his arrival in Washington, Campbell has had to fight to dislodge the ancient Mark Brunell from the starting job, dealt with rumors that he would be replaced by Todd Collins, heard fans claim that Colt Brennan was the real future of the team, and now has been the subject of rampant trade speculation.

What’s wrong with the Redskins?  Some would say Dan Snyder and Vinnie Cerrato, but I think Skins fans have the front office they deserve.

(Note: for any other team, I’d bring up racism, Doug Williams earns the Redskins a pass on black Quarterback issues)