While We’re Waiting… Re-visiting Chris Spielman, 2010 Rotation, Abram Elam Tackles
Written By: Jacob Rosen | Category: Best of the Web | Comments: 0Our daily post While We’re Waiting functions as our spectacular overnight collection of WFNY-like goodies for your early morning viewing pleasure. Have something you think we should see and write about? Send it to our fabulous tips email in the right sidebar.
For starters today, take a look at this illustrative look back at the NCAA legend of LB Chris Spielman: “There are some players who improve a team just by being out on the field. Chris Spielman was one of those players. His energy, his enthusiasm, his hustle, and his aggressiveness were contagious and helped inspire his teammates to do more than they thought they could. Not only that, but he was a pretty decent ball player as well, good enough to make the cover of a Wheaties box when he was in high school, to start for 3 seasons in college and make All-American status the last two, and to play 11 years in the NFL, making 4 Pro Bowls in the process.” [Joe/Eleven Warriors]
A very, very detailed description of what the 2010 starting rotation feels like: “Now with Lee out of that rotation, replaced by a couple of talented, if very inexperienced arms, the Indians find themselves unquestionably in a transition year in the rotation where many options exist, just not many of them looking like sure things from the top on down. In terms of the top, at this point it would seem that Jake Westbrook is the 2010 Opening Day starter if only by the virtue that he’s the best looking option among those on the table. Of course, this represents a stark difference from the past few Openers when the Indians boasted reigning Cy Young winners, but what’s done is done and Westbrook looks to be the de facto top-of-the-rotation starter for the Indians even if his numbers suggest that he simply doesn’t possess top-of-the-rotation stuff.” [Paul Cousineau/The Dia Tribe]
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As always, Castro just knows how to break down the deeper meaning to everything in this epic Indians post: “And this is the gist, which some fans will no doubt have a hard time swallowing: The Indians’ ownership and front office are viewing that four-year period as a success in this market. It was a four-year period with one playoff appearance, no World Series titles and two subpar seasons, and it’s considered a success. The Indians, now more than ever, seem resigned to the realities of baseball’s unbalanced arrangement in which the big-market clubs operate without a salary cap, the amateur Draft is held without anything firmer than a recommended slotting system and the international free agent market has no limits on spending.” [Anthony Castrovince/CastroTurf]
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Good signs out of training camp? Where is that moratorium when we need it??? “The Browns ran about 20 different matchups of open-field tackling drills. Grossi reports that these drills usually favor the offensive player, because with one good move, they can easily evade the defender (imagine yourself as a defender trying to guess where the offensive player is going to go). S Abram Elam excelled in the drill, being able to take down his assigned player twice — once with WR Jordan Norwood, and the other time with WR Paul Hubbard. Good open-field tackling is something Cleveland has needed for quite awhile.” [Chris Pokorny/Dawgs by Nature]
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WR Josh Cribbs is playing nice at camp for now and is happy with doing whatever: “Regardless of where he is on the depth chart, Cribbs — who’s still hoping for a new contract by the start of the season — is confident he’ll surprise a lot of people at receiver this year. ‘I feel like this will be my breakout year as a receiver,’ he said. ‘I feel like I’m coming into my own as a receiver and doing a good job. I had a drop [Friday] but I feel like it was me just letting my guard down and relaxing too much.’” [Mary Kay Cabot/Cleveland Plain Dealer]
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Looking back at the suspicious nature of LeBron’s recent silence: “In the saga of Dunkgate, the most remarkable thing was not the news of the play, nor the cover-up, nor the eventual tape. It was the silence from James throughout, tightly controlling his image at a time when most athletes just can’t shut up. Not to say that LeBron owed the world an explanation, but we expect more openness from athletes these days. Missing multiple junctures to speak out—which, it should be said, would’ve defused the situation several news cycles earlier and made all bygone bygones—makes James look like a dinosaur.” [Bethlehem Shoals/The Sporting News Blog]
Author: JacobRosen
Jacob Rosen is a weekend author for WFNY, the sports editor for the University of Dayton's Flyer News and the current media relations director of the Akron Aeros. Jacob is an Akron native who majors in applied mathematical economics at UD. You can follow him on Twitter @udjrosen or e-mail him at udjrosen(at)gmail(dot)com.Jacob Rosen has written 252 articles for Waiting for Next Year.
