Box Score: Indians 3, Rays 2
July 16, 2012Indians 3, Rays 2: The Ugliest Win of Ever
July 17, 2012While We’re Waiting serves as the early morning gathering of WFNY-esque information for your viewing pleasure. Have something you think we should see? Send it to our tips email at tips@waitingfornextyear.com.
Always look on the bright side of life…“Clayton offers some recent examples of other NFL teams that committed to a core group of skill players that were all under the age of 25, citing the 2009 Bears (7-9), ’09 Giants (8-8) and the ’09 Raiders (5-11, but that was with JaMarcus Russell. Once the Raiders moved on, they’ve gone 8-8 in the past two seasons).
The other example? The 2009 Eagles, who went 11-5 with a group of players that included LeSean McCoy (22), Jeremy Maclin (22), DeSean Jackson (23) and Brent Celek (25). Of course they had Donovan McNabb, rather than a rookie, at quarterback. And who was general manager of the Eagles then? None other than current Browns GM Tom Heckert. While it is clear the Browns are still not a finished product and will very likely take some serious lumps on the field this fall, there is reason to hope that history may finally be on the team’s side.” [Red Right 88]
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Dawgs by Nature found a nice nugget on the Browns’ Brandon Jackson– “Jackson was given a PBE of 97.92. Out of 160 attempts, he only gave up four total pressures. Behind Jackson are Ahmad Bradshaw, John Kuhn, Thomas Jones, and Maurice Jones-Drew. On the opposite side of the spectrum is Jonathan Stewart, who has yielded 25 pressures and has the league’s worst PBE. If Trent Richardson’s blocking is as good as the pundits have made it out to be, then Cleveland’s primary two backs (not including Hardesty) will help keep Brandon Weeden clean on third down, hopefully leading to a good third-down conversion rate for years to come.” [Pokorny/Dawgs by Nature]
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“In any event, soon after that a 6 foot, 250 pound blur came roaring past me after catching a pass in the flat and after being pushed out of bounds, said blur wedged itself in between some metal bleachers and flailed its arms and legs like so many turtles being held upside-down by socially impaired children.
That blur was then-sophomore fullback Zach Boren, and at the time his greatest claim to fame that he seemed to be part of the package deal that brought his older brother Justin to the Buckeyes after the Borens had a falling out with new coach Rich Rodriguez at Michigan. It was Justin, not Zach, who was viewed to be the real prize of one of the weirder OSU/UM contests in history, but now years later, we’re starting to appreciate how lucky we were to bring not just one, but two additional Boren brothers into the fold at Ohio State.
I like to tell that story about Zach to illustrate a couple of things: one, the guy is an athlete. He moves exceptionally quickly for a 250 pound guy, and though his overall top end speed isn’t what anyone would call impressive or runaway beer truck-esque, he’s certainly quick enough to give linebackers and some safeties headaches. Zach gets a lot of deserved credit for being very good at eating up tacklers and being a blocking machine, but physically he’s more than a simple Unstoppable Force.” [Johnny/Eleven Warriors]
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More on Waiters– “Talent-evaluators will tell you Waiters can really fill it up, that he’s more of a scorer than a shooter. I like the fact that he’s cocky and plays with an edge. That alone, of course, isn’t enough. But let’s give him time.” [Amico/FSO]
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Finally, I love this kind of stuff. [Uni-watch]
