Bill Simmons at his Unhinged Best

It will come as no surprise that the following idea offered up by Bill Simmons for improving the NBA in his latest column irked me:

1. Contract the league to 27 teams and dump Memphis, Charlotte and Atlanta, three cities that can't support NBA basketball and never could. Then we'll have a league-wide lottery to determine positioning for the dispersal draft of players from those three teams. (Note: We've already sedated Chad Ford just in case this happens.) And if a contender like Chicago happens to end up with Pau Gasol ... I think we'll manage.

Simmons obviously doesn't think that the NBA has much of a place in the South, but on what basis does he decide that Memphis, Charlotte, and Atlanta can't support NBA teams? All three cities have brand new arenas and would rightfully feel a little screwed if the NBA pulled the plug after such significant investment in professional basketball. Let's look at them individually.

Charlotte had a franchise that was well-supported in the Alozo Mourning-Larry Johnson era, but lost it because: (1) Charlotte had an arena with no luxury boxes; and (2) the Hornets destroyed their local goodwill because of an a-hole owner who simultaneously banged on the Bible and was accused of sexually harassing his employees. When Cleveland lost its NFL team because of an outdated stadium and an a-hole owner, they got a team back within a matter of years. When Charlotte lost its team for the same reason, Simmons decides that Charlotte cannot support an NBA team. (I am assuming that the Hornets' illogical move from Charlotte to New Orleans is the basis for Simmons's argument.) And gee, do you think that the fact that the Bobcats aren't good had something to do with low attendance this year?

Ditto for Memphis, a franchise that has never won a single playoff game, but which drew just fine when the team was competent. Shockingly, they have had attendance problems this year when they're the worst team in the NBA and their star demanded a trade. In truth, a better argument can be made for contracting Memphis because of the size of the market relative to Charlotte and Atlanta and the relative lack of corporate dollars there, but with a new arena and reasonable fan support when the team was hauling in #8 seeds, they aren't an obvious contraction target.

And as for Atlanta, Simmons is constitutionally incapable of saying anything nice about any of the sports teams in this city and makes the same old tired jokes about Atlanta sports fans. He wants the NBA to abandon Atlanta as a market, despite the fact that this is the ninth-largest market in the United States and has grown like kudzu to five million people. He wants the NBA to abandon Atlanta as a market despite the fact that the NBA gets better TV ratings here for the playoffs than just about any other market (other than the markets with teams still competing, which is never a problem for us). He wants the NBA to abandon a market nicknamed "Black Hollywood," which makes perfect sense since the NBA obviously would have no interest in developing a market replete with affluent African-Americans. (Bill assumes that it's better to follow the Boston model: white crowds cheering for black athletes.) He wants the NBA to abandon Atlanta despite the fact that there are a number of Fortune 500 companies headquartered here (maybe Bill has heard of Coca-Cola, Delta, or Home Depot) and thus, this is an ideal market for the NBA in terms of corporate dollars that will chase a good opportunity.

The biggest problem I have with Simmons's statement is that he wants to penalize markets for not supporting bad teams. Is it a coincidence that he wants to contract teams with the 24th, 26th, and 30th best records in the NBA? What rational fan base is going to turn out in droves to watch a bad team? That's not how a market is supposed to function. What consumer is supposed to keep buying a sub-par product? Doesn't that destroy the incentive for the producer of the product to provide a better widget? Should we contract the 76ers, who had lower attendance than the Hawks and Bobcats this year despite having a better record? And how the hell does Simmons know that Atlanta wouldn't support a good Hawks team? The Omni was regularly full when the team was good in the late 80s. Simmons no doubt would have made the same arguments about the Braves in the 80s, before they started winning and drawing three million fans several times, or the Falcons in the 90s, before Mike Vick arrived and the team has subsequently sold every ticket for the past four seasons.

And then there are other problems with Simmons's arguments:

On the flip side, when the Lakers, Celtics, Sixers and Pistons were battling for control of the 1980s, did anyone care that the Clips, Cavaliers, Warriors and Kings were dreadful? Was it a coincidence that the NBA peaked from 1987 to 1993, with a lopsided league of quality teams and crummy teams? Call it the 600/400 Rule: More teams finishing above .600 (50 wins or more) and under .400 (50 losses or more) makes for a more entertaining league. During the glorious '88 season, my choice for the greatest ever, there were eight plus-.600 teams and six sub-.400 teams in a 23-team league.

Of course, the NBA was much better when your team was good and it hasn't been any good since. I look forward to your next piece on how Major League Baseball has been crap since 2004. And where's the explanation for the fact that the NFL's popularity has exploded in a parity era, but the same would not be true for the NBA?

Personally, I don't see the NBA's problem as being a lack of great teams, as there are three outstanding teams in the league this year: Dallas, Phoenix, and San Antonio. Moreover, two of the teams play highly attractive basketball. The problems are two-fold:

1. None of the teams are in major markets and, gasp, they're all in the Sunbelt. As a result, the mainstream media isn't interested in them.

2. None of the teams have marketable stars (Dirk and Nash are foreigners and Duncan is quiet) for the mainstream media to completely overhype.

But I blame the lottery for foisting modified parity on us. Ever since Orlando went back-to-back, top picks have gone to lousy teams every spring, creating a vicious circle in which the lottery replenishes weak teams with blue-chippers who aren't ready to carry weak teams.

I must have missed the Bulls drafting fourth last year after coming off of a playoff run. Or Dallas drafting fifth in 2004. Or Detroit drafting second in 2003.

More generally, Simmons ignores the fact that a number of franchises have pulled themselves out of the losing cycle by using their top picks smartly and pairing their young stars with good supporting casts. I'm thinking of Utah and Toronto here, both of which are going to win division titles because the lottery gave them Chris Bosh and Deron Williams and their GMs made smart decisions in accumulating talent.

And that's why the lottery sucks: Not only does it render the occasional Duncan/ Robinson pairing nearly impossible, not only does it reward poorly run clubs like the Hawks (103 games under .500 since the 1998-99 season), it encourages also-rans to bottom out once they suffer some bad luck because they know it's their best chance to eventually contend.

This makes no sense at all. How does the lottery benefit the Hawks if the Hawks waste their picks on Marvin and Shelden Williams? That just leaves Chris Paul, Deron Williams, and Brandon Roy for other teams. If a team is mismanaged (and I'm not conceding that Billy Knight mismanages the Hawks, although I'm not pleased with where our last two lottery picks are right now), then it will screw up its picks regardless of where in the Draft it makes them.

As for Simmons' solution that the lottery should be unweighted, doesn't that create an even more perverse incentive for teams to tank? If you're the Clippers, wouldn't it make more sense to get a one in seven chance at Durant or Oden as opposed to gunning for the 8th seed in the West so you can be wiped off the map by Dallas? Is it better to have decent teams tanking as opposed to bad teams? And let's note the obvious self-interest apparent in Simmons's argument. He's a Clippers season-ticket holder and an unweighted lottery would benefit the Clips more than any other team, since they have the best record of any of the current teams on the outside of the playoff race looking in.

In an effort to say something nice about a writer whom I criticize all the time, but I read everything he writes (save for his book), I'll say that this idea is excellent and would create an NCAA Tournament-type element to the NBA post-season:

Shorten the regular season by four games, guarantee the top six seeds in each conference, then have a double-elimination tourney for the seventh and eighth seeds between the remaining 15 teams.

It's too bad that the 9th-largest metro area in the country has no business participating.

SAT Analogy Time

Given my rooting interests, a Champions League Final Four including Manchester United, Chelsea, and Liverpool is akin to:

a. The 1998 college football season, which ended with Tennessee and Florida State contesting the national title and Ohio State on the outside looking in.

b. The 1999 Final Four, which included Duke, Ohio State, and Michigan State.

c. A hypothetical pair of League Championship Series with the Yankees and Red Sox on one side and the Mets on the other (otherwise known as the Orgasmotron 9000 in Bristol).

d. The 2004 Presidential Election.

The correct answer, in case you're wondering, is answer "a" because of the added element that in 1998, I felt that karma was punishing me for the glory that was the 1997 college football season by heaping onto me a season in which all the odious teams in college football were at the top of the rankings. This year, karma is punishing me for Barca's glorious 2006 Champions League triumph by serving up a bevy of EPL teams that are showing themselves to be something other than overhyped. I'm going to be left to root for AC Milan, which I'll do in a pinch but produces no great feelings of warmth and happiness, or Bayern Munich, which I'll do happily since I'm the Jew who loves Munich and because Bayern gets much of their offense from two Dutchmen (Mark van Bommel and Roy Makaay).

A few other thoughts on last night's series of unfortunate events:

1. Chelsea's winner was the least-surprising injury time winner ever. Aside from the Blues' tendency to score late, they completely dominated the game after Valencia's fantastic five-minute spell late in the first half when Los Che scored once and nearly scored two more. Valencia couldn't get a sniff of Cech's net in the second half. The only chance they got was blazed over by Angulo. Meanwhile, Chelsea were repeatedly generating corners and they forced two great saves from Canizares. Chelsea's second goal was almost inevitable, given the way the game was going. Chelsea were completely dominating in the midfield for the entire second half; Albelda and Albiol deserve some significant criticism for the fact that they seemed to be spectators in the game. The Blues were also winning every single ball in the air. In fact, they were often unchallenged as Valencia's players simply didn't seem to want to challenge them physically. Chelsea got their heads to just about every corner for a significant stretch of time. I always thought that Barca were lousy at defending set pieces, but maybe this is an issue throughout La Liga.

2. Michael Essien sent in the long ball for Chelsea's first goal and hit a near-post screamer for the second. One wonders why Mourinho doesn't play Essien at right back as his first choice option, as that solves two problems: (1) the team's lack of a right-back; and (2) the team's excess of central midfielders. He put Essien there in the second halves against ManUtd and Arsenal when Chelsea came from behind to force draws. Essien is a terrific player. He makes it harder to root against Chelsea because I generally like African players and I specifically like Essien because he has such a well-rounded game.

3. Canizares made two great saves yesterday, but he had a series of dreadful clearances in the first half and his positioning was poor on Essien's winner. (His positioning wasn't as bad as Doni's inexplicable placement on United's opener, but it was suspect nonetheless.) I stand by my conclusion that Santiago isn't the player he used to be.

4. I had forgotten how much of a bitch Ashley Cole is. I doubt that Chelsea fans really like a mercenary who spent years at Arsenal. I know that Arsenal fans can't stand him and I can't imagine that much of the rest of the world can stand a guy who complains for 90 minutes. In sum, no one likes Ashley Cole. OK, maybe one person:


Totally heinous.

5. I fast-forwarded through the Roma match after they fell behind 3-0, figuring that I might as well check out the Valencia match since it had to be more competitive. From what I saw, Michael Carrick is worth every penny that Alex Ferguson lavished onto him, Cristiano Ronaldo is indeed the best player in the world, and Ryan Giggs still has it, despite his shambolic performance in Rome. After the team looked disjointed in the first leg, Manchester United looked perfect last night. Their passing and movement were exceptional, as they embarrassed the static Roma defense time and again. Christian Chivu and Phillipe Mexes are good players and they were made to look abysmal by the Red Devils. Each goal was a team move. In sum, there is a reason why United are on top of the EPL right now.

And Now, for Something Completely Different

I highly recommend this article from Sunday's Washington Post. Although it takes a while to get through it, the article is well worth your time as a commentary on modern life, or at least on modern commuting. Maybe it resonated deeply with me because I can absolutely see myself leaving a subway station and ignoring a musician playing for spare change, even if that musician is one of the most accomplished violinists in the world. Five year of living in Midtown conditioned me to ignore anyone who might be begging for money and I don't think that's a good thing. Maybe the article resonated because I get zoned into my own little world when I'm commuting to work, as I focus on the road, the latest fire I have to put out at work, and my Teaching Company lectures. (I just finished World War I, so if you find me likening the Thrashers' defense to the French resistance at Verdun or a Bobby Cox decision as worse than the German decision to start unrestricted submarine warfare, now you know why.) Maybe the article resonated with me because I went grocery shopping yesterday with my iPod and wouldn't have known if Charlotte Church was singing in Aisle 6 next to the whole wheat pasta.

What I liked best about the article was that it provoked definite feelings for me. It made me want to download some of Joshua Bell's work, as well as Bach's "Chaconne." (Yes, I appreciate the irony that I want to download the music so I can draw myself off into my own world and listen to it, thus defeating the point of the article.) It made me want to pay more attention to what I see every day. (Cue Lester Burnham's "there's beauty all around us" speech from American Beauty.) And yes, it made me want to Google images of Greta Scacchi. So, as your reward for putting up with this rumination...

We're in First Place! End the Season Now!

After last year's pitching debacle, the last two days have been extremely rewarding for Braves fans. Holding the Mets' lineup to five runs in two games might be a function of cold, windy weather, but I'd like to also think that getting two quality starts and then having three reliable relievers had something to do with it. Mike Gonzalez looks far from dominant and Bob Wickman was VERY lucky on Saturday when Shawn Green laced a ball right at Craig Wilson with the tying run on second in the 9th, but last year's pen would have imploded in both instances. (What Wickman was doing walking Carlos Delgado in the 9th with a two-run lead, one out, and no one on base is a mystery to me, but gift horses and mouths and blah blah blah.)

Kyle Davies's start yesterday was extremely encouraging, as he held the Mets to two runs in almost seven innings while striking out eight. The only downside for him was allowing two homers. Davies was locating his pitches much better than he did last year, so this new delivery might have solved his problems. If Davies can continue to pitch at a high level, then the Braves will be in great shape in terms of starting pitching as they'll only need to find one decent starter out of Mike Hampton, Lance Cormier, and Mark Redman.

The major caveat that needs to be mentioned is that the Braves managed six hits in each of the three games and, as a result of the pounding they took on Friday night, have a dead-even run differential. In six games, the Braves have won a blowout, lost a blowout, and then won all four close games. I'd like to think that a team with three reliable relievers will win more than its share of close games, but 4-0 in close games indicates that the Braves are not as good as their record. (Insert standard caveat about the fact that we're only six games into the season and there isn't that much to be concluded at this point anyway.)

One other note from yesterday: Jeff Francoeur did nothing to detract from his image as a guy you want up at the plate in late and close situations with a game-winning, opposite field double that plated Brayan Pena. (I wasn't wild about Bobby's decision to life the team's best hitter [Brian McCann] for his marginally faster back-up, but it dodn't end up mattering.) Francoeur is, not surprisingly, walkless on the year and his .292 OBP through six games looks suspiciously like his .293 OBP last year, but he is doing a better job of hitting to all fields this season.

The Genius that is Tim McCarver

As if it isn't bad enough that the Skip/Joe/Don/Pete foursome no longer calls Braves games on TV (OK, they're an acquired taste, but just indulge me here), yesterday we were subjected to over three hours of Tim McCarver because Fox deigned to show a game not involving the Yankees or Red Sox. (Fortunately, Fox will correct their mistake over the next four Saturdays, as their games will be the following: Red Sox-Angels, Red Sox-Yankees, Yankees-Red Sox, and Yankees-Mariners. I think my "I'll enjoy baseball so much more if I just ignore ESPN" resolution might need a signing statement. I digress.) McCarver's absence from Braves games in recent years has mercifully deprived me of the chance to chronicle his every ill-reasoned attempt at commentary, but yesterday was a nice return to the good old days. And by good old days, I mean this:


The one occasion on which I was actually sympathetic to McCarver.

McCarver showed off his Billy Packer-ish ability to sound authoritative while being completely and utterly wrong during the Braves three-run sixth yesterday. Here's the situation: bases loaded and one out in a 2-2 game. Matt Diaz drives a pitch to the right-center field gap. Shawn Green gets under the fly ball, but then gives the Braves a Passover offering by dropping the ball. (Why is this inning different from all other innings? Non-Jewish readers, just smile and imagine that I've said something witty.) Andruw Jones comes in from third, while Jeff Francoeur, who was on second, advances to third, but doesn't score because he had retreated to tag up. McCarver proceeds to declare that this is bad baserunning and that Francoeur should have scored after being one-third of the way to third when Green dropped the ball.

In what world does McCarver's pronouncement make sense? Green dropped a ball that he and just about any other major league rightfielder would catch 90% of the time. If Francoeur doesn't tag up, then he's still at second base with two outs. On the rare event that Green drops the ball, Francoeur ends up on third with one out and can score on a sacrifice fly, which is exactly what happened when the next batter, Chris Woodward, flew out down the rightfield line. Nonetheless, McCarver was absolutely certain that Francoeur had made a mistake. There are so many good reasons to criticize Jeff's performance and McCarver managed to pick one that made no sense at all.

OK, So We Aren't Going Unbeaten this Year

Want to know what the top of the 8th inning was like last night at the Ted as the Mets turned a 5-1 lead into an 11-1 boil on the ass of Bravedom as the windchill dropped into the 30s? Here are the topics that were bantered back and forth between me and my friends Billy (the only Padres fan I know) and Victor (the only Reds fan I know and the sole commenter for this site who complains in German):

1. The guy in Section 119 wearing a full ski mask who caught a foul ball as it ricocheted off of the facing of the second deck was either an escaped convict or a second-tier WWF wrestler from 1986 named "El Matador."

2. Billy and Victor traded "coldest games at Candlestick" stories as trash blew all over the field. I was tempted to break out the story of the '95 Michigan 5 Purdue 0 thriller played in windchill below zero and alternating snow, sleet, and hail, but I fell like I talk about that game all the time.

3. "This is like the first 30 minutes of Major League." This remark became especially prophetic when Chipper missed a routine foul pop (to the extent that any foul pop is routine in 30 mph winds) that would have mercifully ended the inning and collapsed to the ground, Willie Mays Hays style. (OK, I made that last part up.) I decided after the game that the Braves should have some fun with BRAVESVISION!!! and make plays like that as the defensive play of the game to give the team incentives not to play like poo.

4. A lengthy discussion on Macay McBride's go-to order at Taco Bell.

5. The first "McDowell Raus!" of the year. (Keep in mind that we're coming off of a three-game sweep of the Phillies in which the Braves allowed seven runs in three games.)

6. A "favorite sequence from a soccer game" discussion. Like a stuck record, I went with the Ariel Ortega dive-headbutt-red card followed by the Bergkamp Wondergoal. Obligatory YouTube clip:



Victor went with Mark Hughes's seven-minute double in his first game for Bayern Munich against Werder Bremen during Octoberfest, followed by running into the entire Bayern backline, including the immortal Roland Wohlfahrth, coming out of the Paulaner tent.


Didn't every German player look like this in the 80s?

7. A review of the 1860 Munich roster to see if Gregg Berhalter and Josh Wolff are getting any playing time, followed by five minutes of mocking Landon Donovan with a number of statements starting with "The 2002 World Cup excluded,..."

8. Assorted obscenities directed at Jose Reyes for celebrating like a Duke point guard after his single extended the Mets' lead to 7-1.

9. I didn't share this, but the top of the 8th gave me major flashbacks to last year. Specifically, the last game I attended in 2006 was an August businessman's special where the bullpen contrived to turn a 3-1 lead against the Phillies in the 7th into a 9-3 deficit. McBride, Tyler Yates, and Oscar RoyalHouse are all holdovers from last year's dreadful pen and for one night (we pray), they reverted to their 2006 form.

I Could Get Used to This

The stats for the new and improved bullpen after two games: eight innings pitched, one earned run, six hits, six walks, six strikeouts, two wins, and two for two in save opportunities. The sample size is tiny and the WHIP and K/BB numbers aren't great, but is there any doubt that the Braves would have lost one or both games last year? Between the bullpen starting strong and Tim Hudson looking great last night (remember his craptastic start on Opening Day in Los Angeles last year?), this season is off to a good start.

The million dollar question for today is whether Chuck James can keep the ball in the ballpark, given the Phillies' strong lineup and the short dimensions at...whatever the hell the Phils' new stadium is called. James was excellent against the Phillies in two starts last year, but a flyball pitcher in these circumstances could be dangerous.

Random Thoughts on the Champions League Quarters

1. Alex Ferguson, still a total schmuck. You have to have watched the first 35 minutes of the Roma-ManUnited game last night to realize how foolish Sir Alex's complaints about Paul Scholes's sending off are. Scholes was hacking at the ankles of Roma's players from the word "go" in the match. When he was finally booked about 25 minutes in, he had already committed several fouls and his first yellow was an awful, two-footed challenge. Mere minutes later, he body-checked Francesco Totti on the break, giving the referee no choice but to send him off. Scholes almost seemed as if he wanted to be red carded last night. Either that or he was hopelessly overmatched by an opponent that passes the ball so well and his only response was to kick the mess out of the crimson and orange players as they ghosted by.

1a. Maybe this is the Barca fan in me speaking, but why is it that every Champions League tie involving an English side inevitably entails a player from the English side getting sent off for totally legitimate reasons, followed by "controversy" as his manager complains in the media about how Drogba/Del Horno/Lehmann should have stayed on the pitch after lunging at the keeper while on a yellow/jumping into Leo Messi feet-first with the ball already gone/bringing down a striker as the last man?

2. This is definitely the Barca fan in me talking: Roma are a terrific side to watch. They have a reasonable amount of talent, although I'm not a huge Totti fan, but what makes them so fun to watch is a system that allows the players to exceed the sum of their parts. Full marks to Luciano Spalletti, who, in addition to having a great name and standard Italian hand gestures after every miss by his team, is really on to something in terms of his approach to the game. Roma don't play with a true striker, but they have five midfielders who are constantly moving back and forth between attacking positions and midfield spots. They use one another brilliantly. United were flummoxed by this movement and teamwork and their attacks seemed to solely consist of runs from Cristiano Ronaldo. The game reminded me a little of the Fiesta Bowl: a great system that maximizes its talent against a great individual. (OK, that analogy would work better if Adrian Peterson would have had a 250-yard game, but you get the point.)

Anyway, I'm regretting not having watched Roma more this year. Serie A games have generally been disappointing because of the lack of drama in the league, the lower number of top-notch teams as a result of the Calciopoly scandal, and the meager crowds (probably a function of the desire of sane people not to have firecrackers thrown in their faces). That said, I should have made an exception for Roma. Last night, with a packed Stadio Olimpico rocking from the opening whistle and Manchester United providing the opposition, Roma were highly entertaining. I really hope they off United in the second leg.

3. Another reason to love European football: "Indiscriminate Beatings." I'm of two minds on this story. On the one hand, it cannot be a coincidence that fans of Premiership teams seem to find this trouble everywhere they go on the continent. United's fans were the "victims" of abusive policing in their last Champions League away match at Lille, so they have something of a streak going here. (Lord help them if they ever play a big match against the LA Galaxy.) On the other hand, the Italian police do have a reputation for excessively aggressive policing and they did pay much more attention to the charging United fans instead of the charging Roma fans, so maybe United have something of a point.


You! The fat, bald, pasty guy! You look like a troublemaker!

I'm still bitter about the treatment I received from a police officer on my one trip to the Stadio Olimpico in 1997 for a Lazio-Verona match. My friend Ken and I were dumb enough to take our backpacks with us to the game and an officer proceeded to comb through our possessions with a fine-toothed comb on the way in, confiscating, among other things, my tiny pebble from Dachau, the cap of my water bottle, and the black plastic cylinder containing my camera film. Fortunately, the officer was also incompetent, as he missed the camera itself or else I wouldn't have gone in. Ken whimpered for the first 45 minutes because he hates soccer and the officer had confiscated his Dad's Swiss Army knife, but his attitude turned around watching the skinhead in front of us make out with his girlfriend after each Lazio goal (and there were four that afternoon). The most perverse element of the zealous security that we experienced is that the police had no problem with ten-year olds throwing smoke bombs indiscriminately.


Much safer than a plastic water bottle cap.

4. If I need to illustrate why I like the Spanish Primera over the English Premiership, I can always use the two goals from the Valencia-Chelsea game. Valencia scored from a cracking David Silva drive from about 28 meters out on the left wing. Chelsea scored from a hit-and-hope long ball that evaded the Valencia defense after it bounced in the box and was nodded in by Didier Drogba. I've made this complaint before, but for all of Chelsea's spending, their efforts to score when pressed seem to consist of nothing more than hopeful, route one balls to their tallest players. Niall Quinn would be so proud. This strategy worked against Valencia because...

5. Santiago Canizares is a shell of his former self. When Valencia was going to two straight Champions League finals, Canizares was untouchable. Last night, he was waving at every long ball sent his way. His form would give me optimism if I were a Chelsea fan.

6. Does Miguel Angulo have the largest nose in sports?

7. I hesitate to criticize ESPN now that they are showing two games on each match day such that I can watch all four quarterfinal matches if I can carve out the time, but would it kill them to not show the scores from the other games going on on the Bottom Line? And while I'm into media criticism, is it me or were Derek Rae and Tommy Smyth openly rooting for Manchester United last night?

Trying to Think of Another Moronic Way to Use "Brave New World" in a Title...

One trip to the in-laws + two boring Final Four games + one sleeping baby + one sleeping wife = your 2007 B&B Braves Preview. This year, I've decided to group the Braves into players who will exceed expectations and players whom I fear will let us down.

(By the way, if I use any fancy-pants statistical terms like VORP or BABIP and you want an explanation as to what I mean, try here or, if you like a little comedy at the expense of John Kruk, here.)

Michael Feels Huggy about:

Brian McCann - As Chipper starts to fade into the twilight of his career and Andruw is almost certain to be wearing a new uniform in 12 months, if not sooner, this is going to be McCann's team. It's unfortunate for him that a truly outstanding 2006 season (54.8 VORP, .320 EQA, .333 BA with 24 homers and 93 RBI if you're old-fashioned) was a footnote to the "the Braves have fallen and they can't get up!" Gotterdamerung.

Chipper - The narrative on him has been "still a quality hitter, but brittle as age catches up with him" for the past several years. Call this a straight from the recesses of my colon hunch, but I think Chipper will be relatively healthy this year. Maybe I'm comparing him to Junior Griffey in my head and assuming that he'll have a similar "remember me?" year this season. Maybe I'm assuming that he's pissed that the Braves didn't win the division last year and is going to punish the rest of the division for their sins. Maybe I'm a hopeless homer. I just have a sense that he's going to provide his .400+ OBP this year over 600 plate appearances instead of 450.

Andruw - One of the topics on which I remain a luddite despite research to the contrary is that of the contract year effect. I suffered through the Jeff Blauser era for far too long to not believe that players play harder and often better when money is at stake. (If I were a pure free market believer, this sense would be even stronger.) Andruw is in a contract year, he saw what is available with baseball's increased revenue this past off-season, and Beelzebub is his agent. Prepare for a big year.

The Bullpen (other than Wickman) - By mid-season, the Braves are going to have a bullpen similar to that of the Detroit Tigers: a portly, shaky, goateed closer fronting for a bunch of young, flame-throwing studs who should be getting higher-leverage innings. Mike Gonzalez's numbers were simply ridiculous in Pittsburgh last year. Ditto for Rafael Soriano before he was brained by Vlad the Impaler. I also liked what I saw from Blaine Boyer and Macay McBride over the past two years; they are a step above the normal reclamation projects that populate most bullpens. Finally, I'm still holding out hope that Roger McDowell, who was an excellent reliever in his day, will produce an excellent bullpen. Does that seem unreasonable?

Kelly Johnson - I love the idea of a patient hitter leading off. I also like that the Braves thought outside the box when they dumped Marcus Giles and moved Johnson to second base. They're also thinking outside the box by putting a guy with average speed in the leadoff spot.

Scott Thorman - BP is not very high on him, but there's an encouraging pattern to his numbers. Upon promotion to AA, AAA, and then the majors, he struggled in each instance. In the case of AA and AAA, he came back the following year and posted excellent numbers. Last year, he struggled when he was called up to the big league team. I know that mastering major league pitching is a different animal to mastering the AA and AAA levels, but if Thorman shows the same progress, then the Braves are going to make out like bandits on the LaRoche deal. I don't see Thorman setting the world on fire, but I do feel like he'll give the team good enough production that we won't have a gnawing feeling of 'yes, but..." when Mike Gonzalez is flaming through the 8th inning.

Bobby Cox - It's hard to imagine a Braves team without him, but we should appreciate him for the next two years, because we're going to miss the hell out of him when he's gone.

Michael Feels Anxious about:

The Starting Rotation - Last year, this was the true weakness of the team. Yes, the bullpen was also atrocious, but the 'pen was bad for about three innings every game and it was supposed to be the weak link of the team since there was so little invested into it. For G-d sakes, what did we expect when we went into the season with Chris Reitsma as the closer? In the final months of the season, the Braves were not out of the running for a wild card spot, but there was no way they were going to get hot enough to make a run with only Smoltz and Chuck James providing anything close to reliable pitching. The staff simply had too many injuries and disappointments to keep the team afloat.

This year, I would like to think that the staff will be better. After all, we're coming out of spring training with six starters after Lance Cormier pitched so well all spring, Kyle Davies found the flaw in his delivery, and Mark Redman appears set to provide solidly average pitching as the #5 starter. When Mike Hampton returns, the Braves will go seven deep at starting pitcher, which is a real luxury and a surprise for a team with a static payroll. However, when you dig a little deeper, the Braves have a ton of question marks after Smoltz (and that assumes that John stays healthy).

Tim Hudson, as has been noted in this space, has seen his peripherals decline in his two years in Atlanta and is dependent on infield defense, but the Braves' infield defense is likely to take a step back this year with an untested youngster at first, a converted outfielder at second, and two guys who are one year older at short and third. Like Cormier and Davies, Hudson allegedly found the magic bullet in Florida: the splitter that he used so effectively in Oakland. If the net result is that Hudson becomes a good pitcher again but misses time by putting more stress on his body, then we'll take that trade, but it's not ideal.

Mike Hampton, assuming he can be healthy and avoid risky activities like swinging a bat or throwing a ball, couldn't strike out '92 NLCS Barry Bonds when last he had a tomahawk on his chest. He is going to have to have pinpoint control when he returns from his latest injury to have a good shot at retiring major league hitters. Is anyone else nervous that someone who hasn't pitched in two years is going to struggle to hit his spots when he comes back?

Chuck James is being counted on by many Braves fans because when we last saw this team, he was 50% of its decent starting pitching. However, he has problems keeping the ball in the park and his success last year was bound up in a .250 BABIP, a number that is unlikely to repeat itself. James did have an almost 2/1 K/BB ratio last year and he's only 25, so we can assume that he'll get better over the next 2-3 years, but he's going to have to be very lucky again to duplicate his 11-4, 3.78 season last year.

Lance Cormier had an almost 1:1 K/BB ratio last year operating predominantly out of the bullpen. I'd like to believe that his new curveball has unlocked vast, heretofore unseen potential, just like I'd like to believe that Jeff Francoeur has a new, more patient approach to hitting, and just like I'd like a toilet made of solid gold. When Leo Mazzone was the pitching coach, I believed in irrational miracles like a previously average pitcher suddenly found a new pitch that will make him an above-average starting pitcher, but my inner skeptic doesn't allow those sorts of flights of fancy anymore. Similarly, I'd like to believe that Kyle Davies's new delivery is going to allow him to fulfill the vast potential that the Braves see for him. In Davies's case, there's a tad more reason for optimism because he does have an excellent arm and he's young, but the guy has been a batting practice pitcher ever since major league hitters started to figure him out after ten starts or so in 2005. I'd like to think that the difference between his 8.39 ERA last year and success this year is a healthy groin and a tweak in his delivery, but...this is getting repetitive.

Mark Redman reminds me way too much of Horacio Ramirez: a lefty who can't strike anyone out, but still gives up a fair number of homers. Anything south of a 4.75 ERA from Redman will be a massive boost.

Overall, I'd much rather have one excellent starter and six ifs than one excellent starter and four ifs. That said, I'd also rather not have so many junk-ballers who can't force swings-and-misses on my team's pitching staff. The starters are going to be the team's achilles heel; it's a matter of whether the bullpen and offense can compensate.

Bob Wickman - There's simply no way he's going to pitch as well as he did after the Braves acquired him last year. The only question is how steep the decline will be. Fortunately, the Braves have Soriano and Gonzalez waiting in the wings.

Jeff Francoeur - Anyone want to re-read the section of Moneyball that describes how a batting eye is typically unchanging; either a hitter has it or he doesn't? (Michael, did you perhaps miss Jose Reyes's career? - ed.) Francoeur is the Braves's Michael Vick: he has all the physical tools to be a star and if you look at the wrong numbers, it's possible to conclude that he is a star. However, he lacks an intuitive skill that is underrated by scouts, but that is critical to success as a ballplayer. Francoeur will have a better average this year because he isn't a .260 hitter, but even if he hits .285, he'll still be nothing more than a .320 OBP guy unless he gets a lot better at working counts.

A Fate Worse than Death

OK, I exaggerate slightly, but the thought of watching a Michigan or Georgia game with Joe Theismann in the booth frightens me. Hell, the thought of watching an LSU-Mississippi State game with Theismann in the booth is revolting. Joe Theismann having anything to do with college football is a terrible, terrible idea. So naturally, ESPN has made just that offer to Joe and he's mulling it over right now. In other words, he's probably waiting for a better offer and when Adam Smith's faith in efficient free markets is confirmed by the fact that no such offer is coming, Theismann will take the offer from ESPN and we'll therefore be subjected to a Musberger-Theismann booth for major games, a veritable Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of evil entities joining forces to screw the Poles/college football fans' psyches.

When Theismann was covering Monday Night Football, I didn't mind so much because, contrary to ESPN's annoying ad campaign, I don't view college football as an hors d'oerve for Monday night and I can live without MNF. Now, to quote George, the evil sheriff/interim coach from Hoosiers:

Look, mister, there's... two kinds of dumb, uh... guy that gets naked and runs out in the snow and barks at the moon, and, uh, guy who does the same thing in my living room. First one don't matter, the second one you're kinda forced to deal with.

George will personally hide-strap your ass to a pine rail and send you up the Monon Line!

What's frustrating, but not surprising about this move is that college football is yet again the red-headed stepchild for ESPN. I know that the NFL is more popular and it makes sense for ESPN to pair its best talent with its highest-rated property. That said, ESPN is surely motivated in this instance by the epic amount of bile slung at Theismann by non-functionally retarded football fans, so why is it passing Theismann off on college football fans? Do we not have feelings? Do we have a burning desire to be told over and over "you know, I talked with coach so-and-so and he told me..." unlike NFL fans? Are we to play the role of altar boys at parishes to which the molesting priest has been transferred instead of being unfrocked?

In the realm of Bill Simmons's good ideas, the iPod mix to replace commentary during sporting events is looking like a better and better idea.

This Would Not Be a Problem Here

Partially because we don't have crocs here and partially because there is no such thing as "strangely fat":

"A woman with three crocodiles strapped to her waist was stopped at the Gaza-Egypt border crossing after guards noticed that she looked 'strangely fat,' officials said yesterday."

Freefallin'

In case the cheering from the Phoenix area confused you, the Hawks have lost six of seven and are now 6-14 since the All-Star Break. I want to love this team, but at this stage, my prevailing emotion is "baseball can't get here soon enough."

There Was Precious Little of This over the Weekend

Israel 0 England 0. Netherlands 0 Romania 0. Lithuania 0 France 1. Notice a trend? The only good things to come from the weekend are that I was - gasp - productive around the house because there was no good footie on (Fox Soccer Channel offered up Russia-Estonia and Norway-Bosnia; GolTV offered up exciting action from the Honduran third division) and that Sunday and Monday mornings brought an outpouring of contempt directed at many of Europe's major powers:

"The Orange machine has temporarily stuttered to a halt." "I didn't like Spain at all." A "mediocre, toothless performance" from England. And just like May 1940, the Germans are the only ones in Europe who seem at all pleased, as their side beat the Czech Republic in Prague and now look to be the favorites for Euro '08, especially with the tournament being played in their backyard in the Osterreich.

Unfortunately, the mediocre football being produced by most of Europe's name countries is entirely consistent with what we saw at the World Cup, where the teams and managers were so frightened by the prospect of conceding goals that the semis and finals produced a whopping three goals in regulation, one from a dubious penalty, one from a legitimate penalty, and one from a corner. Italy was the only team at that stage that could produce a goal from the run of play and it took them 117 minutes to do so. The tournament was summed up for me by the Portugal-Holland game, which featured a ridiculous amount of attacking talent and yet finished 1-0 and was notable only for the copious cards and faux tough guy posturing. Qualifying for Euro '08 has picked up right where Germany '06 left off. There are a few problems at work here:

1. The players are overworked.

2. The players spend precious little time playing together and they do so on a haphazard basis, as they are thrown together for a few days, they play a match or two, and then they go back to their clubs for two months.

3. Players are rated based on their workrate instead of their skill on the ball.

4. Because of overwhelming scrutiny, the managers don't feel comfortable committing to the attack, as the upside for scoring goals is smaller than the downside for conceding them.

Problem #3 seems to be beyond the ability of UEFA to solve. Problems #1 and #2, however, can be fixed by a unified schedule. The solution would be to shorten the club seasons so international teams played together more. If FIFA limited all top divisions to 16 teams and did away with internationals during the club season, then you could have an eight-month club season, a two-month international season, and a two-month break for the players. That would reduce the haphazard way in which international teams are thrown together and it would make qualifying more exciting as it would be in one solid block, rather than spread out over years. A round-robin qualifying tournament over a 4-6 week period would be interesting and the football would be much better, as the teams would have two weeks to prepare and would conceivably get better as the tournament went on (except for my beloved Dutch, who would use the time to develop a series of feuds that would almost certainly result in the modern-day Ruud Gullit packing his bags and leaving). Additionally, the break, which would include a flat ban on matches or training until the final two weeks, would allow players to recharge their batteries so we wouldn't be confronted with players like Thierry Henry and Ronaldinho looking like shells of their former selves.

The trick would be convincing the major clubs to reduce their number of matches in the interests of improving international football and preventing their players from being ground into rubble. Few will miss the bottom four teams lopped off of the EPL or Primera, especially with the stratification in those leagues. 30 domestic matches instead of 38 would be better for the players, but it would decrease revenues, which means it will never happen short of some sort of edict from Brussels. The entrenched interests at play here are no different than those preventing a college football playoff, with the difference being that a playoff would generate more revenue, whereas shortened domestic league seasons would decrease it.

In terms of the incentives for managers to go for goals, maybe the solution would be to award points for goals as well as the result? It seems like the sort of hokey solution that would come from Gary Bettman's marketing department, but imagine the improved quality of play if a 3-3 draw was worth significantly more than a 0-0 draw. Say the system was five points for a win, three for a draw, and then a point for each goal you score up to three (to prevent teams running up the score on Macedonia, not that this is a problem for England). It's a more radical change than the move in the early 90s to three points for a win instead of two, but something should be done to convince managers to try to score.

Drafting Wide Receivers is Risky...as Opposed to Drafting any other Position?

I'm normally a big fan of Len Pasquarelli's work, but this piece on the risks involved in drafting a wide receiver with the #1 pick just isn't very well thought out. Len's makes a couple arguments, all of which can be dismissed with a "and the alternatives are...?" response:

1. Mike Furrey was an undrafted free agent and finished second in the NFL in catches last year.

Yes, and you can make the same arguments about quarterbacks. Peyton Manning led the NFL in passer rating, but #2 was Damon Huard, who was undrafted when he came out of Washington. The #5 quarterback in terms of passer rating was Tony Romo, who was also undrafted coming out of college. If the Raiders take Jamarcus Russell over Calvin Johnson because good wide receivers can be found later in the Draft, then they are making a huge mistake. In other words, they are just being the Raiders.

One other point: why focus on the number of catches as the measure of a receiver's merit? Do we evaluate running backs on their number of carries? A system like that run by Mike Martz can ring up huge reception totals for its wide receivers, regardless of whether those receivers are actually good. Wouldn't it be better to look at, say, Pro Bowl berths? DraftHistory.com did the heavy lifting for us by analyzing the 2005 Pro Bowl rosters and lo and behold, of the eight Pro Bowl wide receivers that year, four were first round picks, two were second round picks, one was a third round pick, and one was an undrafted free agent. The interesting conclusion from that article, by the way, is that teams should spend their first round picks on running backs and offensive tackles. Defensive tackles and cornerbacks also look like solid bets.

2. Lots of wide receivers drafted in the first rounds between 1997 and 2003 flamed out.

This argument is meaningless without comparing wide receivers to other positions. Again, since the unstated implication from Pasquarelli's piece is that the Raiders should take Jamarcus Russell instead of Calvin Johnson with the #1 pick, let's look at first round quarterbacks over the same time frame:

2003 - Carson Palmer, Byron Leftwich, Kyle Boller, Rex Grossman

2002 - David Carr, Joey Harrington, Patrick Ramsey

2001 - Michael Vick

2000 - Chad Pennington

1999 - Tim Couch, Donovan McNabb, Akili Smith, Daunte Culpepper, Cade McNown

1998 - Peyton Manning, Ryan Leaf

1997 - Jim Druckenmiller

It would be pretty fair to conclude that more than half of the quarterbacks on that list have never been or will never be productive starters in the NFL. Druckenmiller, Leaf, Couch, Smith, and McNown are confirmed busts. Carr, Harrington, Ramsey, Boller, and Grossman are either en route to being busts or at least have bust potential.

3. Only two receivers have been taken with the #1 pick and neither of them are going to the Hall of Fame.

Wow, a sample size of two! We can make TONS of legitimate inferences from that!

4. "Because of the rules changes that have opened up the passing game and turned ordinary receivers into players capable of snagging 60 balls per season, it's not necessary to have Hall of Fame-caliber players at the position."

So if the rules favor the receivers, doesn't that make a superlative receiver even more important because defensive backs can do relatively little to stop them?

Incidentally, I have a theory on why wide receivers sometimes flake out in the NFL when they play the position that should be the simplest to evaluate for scouts. (OK, I cribbed the theory from a 2002 Slate.com article.) The position tends to collect the biggest head cases, players with flashy athleticism and a desire to be isolated into one-on-one encounters where teamwork is unnecessary. Thus, wide receivers are more likely to flame out in the NFL than players at any other position because they are the most likely players to go nuts once they are lavished with money and attention. This is my theory as to why Charles Rogers, for example, was an NFL bust despite physical skills and a college pedigree that seemed to guarantee NFL success. Anyway, coming back to Calvin Johnson for a moment, CJ is universally described as terrific individual, so the normal skepticism that NFL types have about top wide receivers do not apply.

I'm Feeling Socratic this Morning

Peter King spent years extolling just about anything that the New England Patriots did, but he had a specific affection for their low-budget approach to free agency, where they eschewed signing big-ticket free agents and instead looked for bargains that would improve their depth. He also babbled on endlessly about how the Patriots would only bring in character guys. So now that New England is on a free agent spending spree and have gone after a collection of former Tennessee Vol receivers with demons (Donte Stallworth and Kelley Washington), what's King's reaction? Brilliant! Not a hint of acknowledgment that all of his former praise might have been flawed. Scott Pioli could form a group of Patriot Ultras to pay homage to Arkan and Peter King would hail the move as a visionary step to mimic the best traditions of European fandom.

Meanwhile, Tom Verducci is busy castigating the Yankees for taking a flawed approach to team development. This article would have made sense about four years ago when the Yankees were busy trading prospects every year for mediocre, "proven" veterans, but Verducci is completely behind the times. I am loathe to praise the Yankees in any respect, but they've done a commendable job in the past couple years of not mortgaging their future and of looking to their farm system to plug holes instead of signing the Gary Sheffields and Randy Johnsons of the world. As a result, the Yankees have, gasp, an honest-to-g-d good young player in Robinson Cano and another one in the pipeline in Philip Hughes.

The major problem that I have with Verducci's piece is that he contradicts himself. He argues (correctly, in my opinion) that the baseball playoff are a complete crapshoot and he cites some truly startling numbers:

In all postseason series from 1995 (the start of the wild-card era) through 1999, the team that won the greater number of regular-season games came out on top 52.5 percent of the time (21-19). But from 2000 to '06, the team with more regular-season victories won only 36.2 percent of postseason series (17-30).

Then, instead of simply concluding that the Yankees are, barring an unforeseen disaster, going to be in the playoffs and they'll have a 1/8 chance of winning the World Series once they're there, Verducci goes on to make the claim that teams with older players are at a disadvantage in the playoffs. If the playoffs are random, then it shouldn't help or hurt having older players, right? It has to be one or the other, but it can't be both.

Looking more closely at the Yankees' exit last year against the Tigers, there is no rational way to conclude that the Yankees were done in by their older players. Look at the OPSs for their position players:

Abreu - .812
Cano - .266
Damon - .690
Giambi - .800
Jeter - 1.467
Matsui - .562
Posada - 1.348
A-Rod - .142
Sheffield - .166

Yes, a couple of the Yankees' older players were dreadful, but their best hitters in the series were 32-year old Derek Jeter and 35-year old Jorge Posada. Conversely, their one young player (Cano) did nothing for them. The age factor that Verducci likes to tout doesn't prove much at all.

Highway Robbery

Referencing the Rafael Soriano/Horacio Ramirez heist, Baseball Prospectus's one-sentence description for the Braves in 2007 is "Three or four more deals with the Mariners and the Braves can start a new dynasty." That's a little how I feel about the news that the Falcons landed two second-round picks and moved up two spots in the Draft in return for Matt Schaub.

As an initial matter, Schaub was of little value to the Falcons. Yes, a good back-up is important, but the Falcons were going to lose him at the end of the year, anyway. Additionally, you don't want your back-up to be too good because he's never going to play unless the starter gets hurt and Michael Vick has been healthy for the past two seasons. Schaub was never really an option to start, given tbe amount of money that the Falcons are paying to Vick, and his value went down when the team fired Jim Mora and transitioned away from the West Coast offense. This move is better for Schaub and better for the Falcons. (If Schaub does better than Vick next year, that will not mean that the trade was a bad idea, but rather that paying Michael Vick the GNP of Ecuador was a bad idea.)

As for the picks, the Falcons really need them because they have made relatively few picks in the last several drafts and the team is top-heavy. It has a number of high-salary players, but not much behind them. Now, the Falcons will have three picks in the top 44 this year and they're deeper in terms of picks in 2008, as well. Additionally, moving up two spots virtually ensures that they'll get one of Levi Brown, Laron Landry, Gaines Adams, or Jammal Anderson and it puts them in better position to trade down if a player like Brady Quinn or Adrian Peterson slide down the board and a team up above them gets excited about nabbing them, in which case the Falcons would further stockpile picks.

In short, with smart drafting, the Falcons turned Matt Schaub into two cheap, productive starters. I'd say I was surprised, but we have to remember that this is the Texans we're dealing with.

Do I Feel a Draft in Here? Or Just Some Dreadful Puns?

Four questions for this week:

1. Who’s your favorite, non-obvious pick in the draft this year who you actually watched play?

I'm inclined to say Patrick Willis, even though he's generally rated as one of the top linebacker prospects. He's the perfect combination of terrific measureables in terms of speed and strength and great on-field production. The gulf between Willis and the other linebackers in the Draft is significant. If you're a team picking in the top ten (like, say, the Falcons) and you've had problems stopping the run and you're watching the Tampa Two, a defense that puts great pressure on the middle linebacker, take over the NFL, wouldn't you want to take a player who is clearly the best at his position? Willis isn't a lock for the top ten for the sole reason that he played at Ole Miss instead of Ohio State. His college choice is hampering him Draft status, which screams UNDERVALUED!!! to me. Or maybe I'm hearing the voices again and should have that checked out.

Another guy who is undervalued is Michael Bush, who would be the #2 running back in the Draft if not for a broken leg last year. If he had shredded his knee or exploded his Achilles Tendon, then I'd understand his third round grade, but he broke his leg and that's an injury that generally doesn't leave nasty lingering effects, nor is there an elevated risk of the injury happening again. How many 250-pound running backs are floating around with pretty good speed, good vision, and quick feet? That's what I thought.

One other guy floating around who would be a nifty pick in the middle or late rounds is Lorenzo Booker because he's hella fast and will be productive the moment he's placed in an offense not run by a walking, talking poster child for anti-nepotism policies. At a minimum, he should be a good returner. Remember the value the Jets got with Leon Washington? Booker is faster and was a bigger recruit before he was mangled by the Jeff Bowden JumpBallORama.

On a related note, two other guys are underrated because of the coaching they received in college. One is Trent Edwards, who was a big-name quarterback coming out of high school and looked good at times at Stanford before the Walt Harris disaster dragged him down. The other is Steve Breaston, who isn't very good as a receiver, but will be an outstanding return specialist in the NFL once he's playing for coaches who are not paralyzed by risk-aversion and who therefore recognize that it is in fact legal and rational to block punt coverage gunners.

I have a sneaking suspicion that Sidney Rice is going to be taken too low because of the Troy Williamson experience, with NFL types conveniently forgetting that Williamson caught about nine passes in his last year in Columbia while playing in Lou Holtz's offense, whereas Rice played in a sophisticated offense in which he caught 142 passes for 23 touchdowns as a reshirt freshman and sophomore. Call me crazy, but I'd have him as my top receiver in the Draft (other than that guy from the Flats).

2. Who’s your RADIOACTIVE BIOHAZARD DO NOT TOUCH AAAIIIIGGGHHH pick to avoid in this draft?

For the amount of hype he's getting, as well as the money that the Raiders are going to pay him, Jamarcus Russell has to be on this list. I liked him at LSU and this might be the contrarian in me leading me astray, but there are all sorts of signs that he's overrated in his capacity as the top pick in the Draft. First, any quarterback whose weaknesses section leads off with "needs to improve his decision-making process" is a red flag. That's not unlike a porn star whose first weakness is "not very attractive." Russell is exactly the sort of quarterback that scouts fall in love with because of his physical tools and forget that those tools are all secondary to the importance of decision-making and accuracy. Russell's decision-making problems showed up against every good defense he faced. Riddle me this: should the #1 pick in the Draft throw for 5.5 yards per attempt and three picks in his team's biggest game of the year? Should his biggest throw of the year - the winning score at Tennessee - have ended up in the hands of someone other than his intended receiver (and LSU only needed that score because Russell had been a turnover machine all game and kept Tennessee in the game)? And that's before we discuss 2005, when Russell didn't break 100 in QB rating for any game other than his efforts against Appalachian State, North Texas, Mississippi State, and Vandy.

Second, there is a major recency issue going on with Russell because of his performance against Notre Dame, but everyone seems to forget that Notre Dame hasn't had competent defensive backs since, well, since they last won a bowl game? Name me a semi-competent quarterback who hasn't looked good against Notre Dame's secondary in the past two years, and most of those guys didn't have the luxury of throwing to Dwayne Bowe and Craig Davis.

Third, Russell has great physical tools, but he's still developing as a passer, so being sent to Oakland will retard his career in a major way. The Raiders would be much better off drafting a finished product like Calvin Johnson or Gaines Adams who won't need functional coaching to develop as a player. To put this in the legal context, if you were starting a firm and knew nothing about how to train a lawyer, you'd much rather take an associate with average intellectual ability and experience in the litigation process over a brilliant Yale grad who has no practical knowledge of how the law works and is noted for a searing analysis of Bruce Ackerman's Constitutional Moments.

I'm also not a fan of Paul Posluzny, mainly because the profile of "white tackling machine from the Big Ten with 'adequate speed'" hasn't exactly been consistent with rip-roaring NFL success. As much has Patrick Willis is underrated because he played at Ole Miss, Posluzny is overrated because he played at Penn State and people think that Shane Conlan is still kicking around.

You would think that I would be excited about Leon Hall being listed as the top corner prospect in the Draft, but he never wowed me in college. If a team is going to spend a top 15 pick on a corner, then shouldn't that corner be described as something other than "solid" and "lacking top-end speed?" Hall had a good 40 time at the combine, but I'm not sold on his acceleration, or maybe I just can't get the images of Dwayne Jarrett running past him in the Rose Bowl out of my head. Some team that is drafting for need instead of talent is going to reach for Hall and regret their decision.

Drew Stanton: Couldn't stay healthy, wildly inconsistent, played almost exclusively out of the shotgun in college...third quarterback taken? Makes perfect sense to me.

3. Who’s your favorite college stud who failed to find success in the pros?

Will Carr. Michigan fans unfortunately remember him for fumbling at the goal line in a revolting 9-3 loss at pre-Tiller Purdue that knocked Michigan out of the running for the Big Ten title, but Carr was a dominating defensive tackle, as evidenced by 128 tackles and 29 tackles for loss in his last two years. (By way of comparison, Alan Branch had 56 tackles and 9 TFLs in the last two years and he's ranked as one of the top two defensive tackles on the board.) I was sure that Carr was going to be the first Michigan DT to do something in the pros, but he went out with a whimper.

4. In the big draft board of life, where were you?

Coming out of Michigan, I was the proverbial player who had put up great numbers for three-and-a-half years before slacking off at the end of his senior year, leading scouts to wonder "how much does he want it?" Also, tendencies to burn roommate's new pots and pans while attempting to cook mashed potatoes or having meltdown in parking lot in Evanston led to concerns about the effects that this player would have on team chemistry.

Everyone Pile on Duke Today

As a soccer fan, I ought to appreciate a good dive more...

The Baseball Prospectus Book Report on Tim Hudson

We're hoping for less of the "Tim Hudson beleaguered" look this year.

I try not to get too caught up in the "_____ is the key to a good season" line of thinking. For instance, I would like to proclaim that Tim Hudson is the key to the Braves' season because their starting pitching was a major weakness last year and Hudson's disappointing campaign was a large reason why. That said, if Hudson returns to his Oakland form, but the team finishes 78-84 because they get no production from the first and second base spots, then what have I really proved? I'm comfortable saying that Hudson is important to the Braves because they need him to be a reliable starter and they are paying him lots of money to be one when their payroll isn't big enough to weather a non-producing, big money guy.

It's with that intro in mind that I link the Baseball Prospectus's Player Profile for Hudson. Unfortunately, there isn't much cause for optimism there. The gist of the article is that Hudson thrived, despite a low strikeout rate, because of significant groundball tendencies paired with a sterling defensive infield in Oakland. This is a major concern for Hudson in '07 because it's likely that the Braves' infield will be worse defensively this year than it has been in the past two years. Edgar Renteria and Chipper Jones are both a year older and the latter has never been much with the glove. On the right side, the Braves will likely see a decline in defensive performance from the first base spot when they go from Scott Thorman to Adam Laroche. Ditto for the second base spot, where the Braves go from Marcus Giles to a converted outfielder who once made 45 errors at Class A Macon and is coming off of Tommy John surgery.

The most disturbing trends for Hudson since he's come to Atlanta are increases in his home run and walk rates. Over his last four years in Oakland, Hudson's home run rate decreased each year, from .8 HR/9 in 2001 to .7, .6, and then .4 in 2004, his last year in Oakland. Since he's come to Atlanta, those rates have jumped up to .9 and then 1.0 last year. Ditto for his walk rate, which declined in each of his last four years in Oakland and then has jumped up in his two years in Atlanta. Is Hudson trying to hard to strike batters out in Atlanta because he has less faith in his defense? Is he declining because of natural aging? The Braves need Hudson to pitch well, but I fear that I'm hoping against hope that he'll magically reverse a two-year trend and improve his peripherals. Those walk and home run rates should receive some close scrutiny this year in April and May.

Should the Hawks Be Tanking?

The Hawks' four-game winning streak and the resulting appearance of articles like this one from John Hollinger entitled "Look Who's Contending Now" (a statement that hasn't been made about the Hawks this century, but it now creeping out of the keyboards of writers without full frontal lobotomies) has caused us ton examine the question of whether the Hawks should be winning at this stage.

In a comment to my post yesterday about the Hawks, LD opines that the Hawks should not be winning right now:

Count me among those who think the Hawks' winning streak is a bad thing. It's not lottery position they're costing themselves, it's having a lottery pick at all. They lose their own pick to Phoenix if it's not in the top 3. With Indiana looking like they'll make the playoffs, that means the Hawks only pick in the top 14 will be their own, and they'll only keep it if their ping pong balls put them in the top three. From the results of the last week or so, they've gone from having a 12% chance at the top pick to less than 8%. While that seems like a de minimis shift, the chances of getting the 2nd or 3rd pick also drop. A week ago, the Hawks were tied with the Bucks, Bobcats and Sixers with for the third worst record, and only a game or so behind the Celtics. Now, they're behind two of those teams (Praise Iguodala). So their chances of having no pick at all in the lottery have increased from somewhere around 60% to closer to 80%. I think when the issue isn't having "a worse pick" but rather having "any pick", winning meaningless games late in the year is even worse. Now would be a good time for a Pacers collapse though - so the Hawks could snag Acie Law with the 14th pick.

I am certainly not one of those people who is averse to rooting against my favorite teams. I've been rooting against Michigan's basketball team for just about this entire season because I didn't want them to get a meaningless #10 seed in the tournament, a result that would have been a failure when the program was living up to expectations, but would now be treated as the equivalent of UCLA winning eight straight titles because of the depths to which Michigan has fallen as the result of bad coaching. Tommy Amaker's resume going into this year made it abundantly clear that he is a below-average basketball coach and Michigan will never win consistently with him. Thus, for the long-term health of the program, Michigan needed a bad enough season that Bill Martin and Mary Sue Coleman would be forced to fire him. Hopefully, 8-8 in a lousy Big Ten and not even being on the bubble will be sufficient, but you never know. I digress.

With that background out of the way, I am decidedly in favor of the Hawks continuing to win games, even if that decreases the chances of the team retaining its first round pick. If you assume counter-factually that the Hawks would have lost the last four games instead of winning them, they would have a 13.75% chance of winning the lottery, whereas right now they have a 4.3% chance of winning it. Thus, their winning streak has cut their chance of winning the lottery significantly, but keep in mind that their chances of winning the lottery were very small to begin with, even if they kept losing and finished with the third-worst record in the NBA. The NBA structures the lottery odds in such a way that the incentives to tank a season are not that great. Also, with four additional losses, the Hawks still would only be 1.5 games worse than Milwaukee or Charlotte, so their margin for error in retaining the 13.75% chance would be minimal.

More importantly, the Hawks are currently at a stage of rebuilding in which they don't really need more young players. I'd be an idiot to say that they couldn't use Greg Oden or Kevin Durant (although the latter would force them to deal Marvin Williams or Josh Childress at a cut rate, not that this would be a terrible problem to have, given Durant's talent). That said, the rest of the players in the Draft are good, but not so wonderful that they would change the Hawks' fortunes significantly. This is all about Oden and Durant and the Hawks' shot at either of them goes from long to longer by virtue of the recent winning streak.

Set against that marginal change in the odds is the fact that the Hawks' young players need to learn how to win. The young nucleus of Josh Smith, Joe Johnson, Zaza Pachulia, Marvin Williams, and Josh Childress needs to develop confidence. Johnson's calf injury has turned out to be a blessing because the other young players are forced into greater roles with Johnson out and they're learning that they are capable of filling those roles quite well. This is a significant development for the team. With the teams in front of them all in various stages of free fall, a playoff bid isn't out of the question and that would be a major development for these players and this franchise. It's been so long since the Hawks were on top of the sports radar in this town for anything good. A strong finish to the season would change that. A strong finish would also make the team more attractive to players on other teams in the NBA, so the Hawks wouldn't have to overpay dramatically to acquire future Joe Johnsons. The team needs 1-2 established players more than it needs talented 19-year olds.

In the end, this is really more of an emotional issue for me than anything else. I went to ten games in 2004-5 when the Hawks won 13 all year. I went to 19 games in 2005-6 the Hawks won 26. I've lived through the never-ending rebuilding process. Now that the process is finally starting to bear fruit, I'm simply incapable of not enjoying the team playing well. Maybe that means that I'm being irrational about the negatives of the Hawks winning four in a row, but I'm having a hard time divorcing myself from the excitement of a bunch of young players maturing into the sort of players that we all hoped they could be. (I'm really thinking of Josh Smith here.)

All that said, my experience as a Hawks fan requires me to recite one of my favorite exchanges from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade at this stage:

Walter Donovan: As you can now see, Dr. Jones, we are on the verge of completing a quest that began almost two thousand years ago. We're just one step away.

Indiana Jones: That's usually when the ground falls out from underneath your feet.

While I Was Out

Trying to actually live up to the title of this here blog:

Hawks

Far be it from me to be melodramatic, but last week might have saved the Hawks' season. After a 1-8 start to the second half, the team eked out three wins over Washington, Memphis, and Minnesota to halt their collapse. 35 wins, which was my goal for the season, is still attainable, although it will require an 10-8 finish and this club has shown an ability to tread water, but not much of an ability to get over .500 for an extended stretch. The interesting aspect of the three-game winning streak is that the Hawks accomplished it with Joe Johnson on the sidelines, which clearly indicates that the team had grown stagnant and dependent on its star player. While some have said that the Hawks' winning streak is a bad thing because it damages their lottery position, that claim doesn't really ring true to me because this team has plenty of young talent and it's more important at this stage that they learn how to win and play with one another. Durant or Oden sure wouldn't hurt and the winning streak only marginally decreases the chances of the Hawks landing one of them. The team is four and a half games out of a playoff spot, but they're also six games out of last place in the East. After 64 games, the Hawks are probably where they're going to end up. Whether they play well in the final 18 games will determine the future of Mike Woodson and possibly Billy Knight. OK, that and a law clerk for the Maryland Court of Appeals.

Thrashers

En Fuego! The team is 6-1 since acquiring Zhitnik and Tkachuk and there is a decent case for causation here outside of the usual platitudes of "Waddell showed the team that he cares" (although there might be something to that). Zhitnik has eight assists and is +7 since coming over, while Tkachuk has four goals and is +7. Add in Eric Belanger's 11 points and +1 in his 13 games since joining the team and you have good evidence that Waddell's efforts to improve the team's depth have been successful. Interestingly, the one area in which Tkachuk and Zhitnik were supposed to provide the greatest impact - the power play - has not been affected substantially, as the team is only 6/34 on the power play (17.6%) since the trades. That said, we do have sample size issues here, so insert customary caveats about how we would know more if Zhitnik and Tkachuk had been with the team for 5,000 games.

Braves

Mike Hampton is hurt again and Chipper injured his ankle yesterday, although the latter injury is relatively meaningless. I put almost no stock in spring stats, at least until the end of spring when there is a month's worth of data and the teams are playing a little harder by late March. I just want the team to be healthy when they emerge from the Magic Kingdom and Hampton's injury is problematic. I would be more excited about Mark Redman if Leo Mazzone was still rocking in the dugout, but he's a decent option for the fourth or fifth starter spot, especially since I don't have much faith in Kyle Davies based on what I've seen from him so far. The Braves' rotation doesn't look much better than it did last year, but then again, the Mets' rotation looks worse. Speaking of which, I found this snippet ($) from the Baseball Prospectus to be interesting:

Consider that 2006 Mets starters threw the third-fewest innings in the National League. If you think it’s counter-intuitive for a good team to be among the leaders in relief innings pitched, you’re right. Looking at innings pitched by starters over the past five seasons (2002-2006), the top 10 National League teams in that category averaged a 92-70 record, while the bottom 10 averaged 74-88. (For comparison, the 10 teams clustered around the average of 951 innings were right in between with their average won-loss as well, going 83-79.)

Much as we all fetishize the 1990 Reds and imagine that Gonzalez, Soriano, and Wickman can be our Nasty Boys (just like Texas fans are probably fetishizing Danny and the Miracles right now), good teams tend to have starting pitchers who shoulder most of the pitching load. The Braves' rotation, after Smoltz, is a series of question marks and the margin for error is going to be lower this year because of presumed offensive decreases from the first and second base spots.

Messi's Hat Trick

It's amazing what a last-minute equalizer and Sevilla's loss at bottom-dwelling 'Nastic does for the ol' outlook:

Uno:



Dos:



Tres:

Barca-Real, the Liveblog

YOU ARE LOOKING LIVE at the Nou Camp where the recently defrocked champions of Europe will meet up with the artists formerly known as Real Madrid. Pacing the sidelines will be Frank Rijkaard, who's been rumored to be on his way to Milan in the summer, and Fabio Capello, who's been rumored to be on his way by the Ides of March. This ought to be fun, as both teams desperately need this game.

I have not seen the Liverpool second leg. I was working ludicrous hours this week and DVRed the game, but after reading write-ups like this one that make it sound as if Barca were mostly toothless at Anfield, I deleted that one quickly.

4:02 - The Barca anthem is being sung. BARCA! BARCA! BARRRR-CA! At the end, the camera finds a very angry Catalan, followed by the Phil Schoen referencing Franco and the Spanish Civil War. Dammit, he beat me to the first reference to Madrid's fascist heritage. I feel shame.

4:05 - Barca's lineup seems a little unbalanced. They have three attackers - Messi, Ronaldinho, and Eto'o - and three relatively offensive midfielders - Xavi, Deco, and Iniesta - with three defenders at the back and Marquez presumably as the shield. The good news is Thuram and Deco are back. Thuram was poor at the Bernabeu, but he's the best option at centerback right now.

4:10 - Barca have the ball for the first five minues or so. Real take their first attack and score, as Barca are exposed at the back on the counter (hard to believe with only three defenders and six attacking players) and Thuram hits a dreadful clearance of a Higuain cross right to Van Nistlerooy, who buries it past Valdes. Just what the struggling Blaugrana needed.

4:19 - Flea! 1-1 as Messi is unmarked on the right side and slots it right past Casillas. Real come right back and the clumsy Oleguer sticks a leg out and trips Guti in the box. Brilliant. Guti stuck his leg out to ensure contact, but this was a good call and Oleguer's fault. Van Nistlerooy sends Valdes the wrong way and it's 2-1. Barca's defense is, to use Seamus Malin's term, shambolic. They have combined slumping defenders and a lack of numbers at the back. There is a vortex of tactical and personnel failings going on right now.

4:24 - Eto'o is sent free on goal and is thwarted by Casillas for the second time. Barca is throwing everything forward and creating chances on both ends. Messi set up the chance. Leo showing the goods today.

4:30 - There's been more action in the first 24 minutes than there was in 90 minutes of Man United-Liverpool. Then again, this is because of the insanity of Barca's deployment and the inability of any Barca defender not named Puyol to perform basic defensive tasks.

4:32 - Eto'o is set up by Ronaldinho at the penalty spot and scuffs the shot. Three good chances and he hasn't scored. His movement is excellent and it was his pass that set up the Barca equalizer, but the finishing is dull. And as soon as I type that, Ronaldinho jinks into the box (how many other players "jink?"), plays a great one-two with Eto'o and forces an amazing save by Casillas, but Messi nails the rebound into the roof of the net as Casillas narrowly misses making the double-save of the decade and three Real players on the line look on helplessly. This is electric stuff.

4:38 - Barca create two more great chances. Ronaldinho gets set up in the box, but can't control it, followed by Messi being sent free by Xavi and hits the side netting. Cue Alabama's PA announcer: this is Barcelona football.

4:44 - Every time Real come forward, it's four-on-four. On this instance, Higuain causes Marquez to fall over and whistles a shot just wide. He also had Guti open on the left side. Barca then come down to the other end and Ronaldinho gets to the byline and crosses, but Salgado clears just before Eto'o can tip the ball into the open net. I'm really not exaggerating here; there are more good chances at both ends than there were in the World Cup semis and finals combined. This is the '66 World Cup Final all over again.

4:50 - The Real defenders are just traffic cones for the Barca players. Eto'o slaloms past two from the left before getting stopped by the third. Deco then beats one on the right and sets up Iniesta for a shot from 23 meters that Casillas saves nicely. This is like a hockey game at this point, minus the sticks swung at heads.

4:52 - Oleguer picks a second yellow for a reckless challenge in the Real half. No one will notice his absence, although it might force Barca to play more defensively and decrease their numbers at the offensive end.

4:54 - Halftime. Ray Hudson is breathless. He might deplete his arsenal of metaphors by the time we reach 90 minutes. In the realm of amusing ads, if I text "Win B" for Barca to some number, I can win a five-day vacation to Orlando...the city in which I just spent five days billing a century. Personally, I'd prefer it if GolTV ran one of the Spanish-language infomercials for sex enhancement pills that they usually run during the morning and could double as soft-core porn. Mas Sexo!

5:10 - Eto'o off for Silvinho. Barca needed a defender after Oleguer's madness and Eto'o probably can't play for the full 90, but why not take off one of the offensive midfielders and retain the attacking three? Eto'o's passing and movement were terrific in the first half and Barca will now lack a true striker.

5:17 - We're seven minutes into the second half and the big highlight so far has been a dreadful "clearance" by Marquez (who has had a Spears-ian devolution this year) directly to a Real player on the left wing. The cross comes in and Puyol, the one Barca defender who hasn't embarrassed himself, forces the shot wide.

5:21 - I've been impressed by Guti, which is something new. Real have suffered this year because they've had no one to replace Zidane as an offensive midfielder to set up the frontline and Guti is doing a good job in that role today. I'm also impressed by Higuain. He looks like Real's first good purchase in ages.

5:25 - Ray Hudson has figured out that Barca have no protection for the back four and they are exposed as a result. This is what happens when Iniesta, Deco, and Xavi all play at the same time. Rijkaard made the same mistake at the Bernabeu and hasn't learned that he needs to play Edmilson or Motta in front of the defense.

5:27 - Robinho on for Raul, who has been anonymous despite Barca's frailty. The Madrid team on the pitch really worries me.

5:32 - Van Nistlerooy has had three great shots and Valdes has answered all three times. The first comes off a move started by Robinho taking the ball off Ronaldinho in his back right corner, then Higuain sends Ruud clear on goal and Valdes makes an epic save when Ruud tries to chip him. Valdes either guessed that Ruud would try to chip him or he has the quickest reflexes ever. The next two saves weren't quite as great, but they're still impressive. It's all Real now. The red card and resulting withdrawing of Eto'o have castrated Barca. As usual this season, Rijkaard has gotten his tactics and subs wrong and Barca have been toothless in the second half.

5:37 - Belletti on for Deco. This is a good move. Barca can now have four in the back with Marquez as the screen. Plus, Deco had a yellow and was throwing himself around recklessly, so this will prevent Barca from having to play with nine.

5:38 - And as soon as I say that, Guti serves up a free kick from the right and Sergio Ramos heads it in. Barca's defense on a set piece lets them down again, although in this instance, there's almost nothing that can be done on a glancing header this good. Real have dominated the second half and they deserve the lead. That was a great goal.

5:49 - Casillas just beats Ronaldinho to a loose ball after Gudjohnsen heads a free kick towards goal. Casillas has been excellent, as usual.

5:53 - This is the same game I've been watching for the past month. Barca play well in the first half, something goes against them late in the first or early in the second, and then they get dominated in the second half. It happened against Valencia (sorta), Liverpool, and Sevilla.

5:55 - REVERSE JINX!!! FLEA, MUTHAF***ER!!! Messi is an absolute magician, taking a pass from Ronaldinho (that was probably intended for Gudjohnsen), beating Helguera, and then slotting in at the far post past Casillas at full stretch as Ramos came over. And he kisses the team crest for good measure. Ramos's was a great goal, but that was even better. And then Ronaldinho gets run over in a dangerous position in the box by Diarra in a moment of stupidity, but the ref swallows his whistle. Why didn't you swallow your whistle when you were sending Oleguer off, you Francoist Puta!?! (I doubt that's a good Spanish construction, but I'm mad and can't be expected to make proper grammar.) And he gives a foul against Ronaldinho for good measure.

3-3 at the final whistle. The Catalan white hankies are out for the ref. A terrific game, marked by great play from Barca in the first half and Real in the second. Barca will be three points down tomorrow if they don't get any help from 'Nastic, but they've finished their murderer's row of Valencia, Sevilla, Real Madrid, Liverpool twice in the Champions League, and Zaragoza on the road in the King's Cup. The schedule is more manageable the rest of the way and as Eto'o and Thuram round back into form and Sevilla feels the pressure of going for a title they haven't won in ages, Barca still have a great shot at a third straight Liga title. If Rijkaard goes back to last year's structure (with more protection for the defense) and gets better with his in-game tactics, the season is salvageable. It would have been hard to get back up without that strike from Leo.

Light Posting this Week

Just so you know, my usual brain-to-keyboard-to-cyberspace diarrhea will be limited this week because of work. So if you're looking for more wringing of garments over the Hawks or the Blaugrana's impending doom at Anfield, you'll probably have to look elsewhere.

I Don't Want to Talk about This

The Hawks are 1-7 coming out of the All-Star break. In the deep corners of my mind, I have a gnawing suspicion that the team really isn't as good as I had hoped and their inability to win games in the later stages of the season when opponents are bringing their "A" games is evidence of that fact. I hope I'm wrong.

I Don't Want to Talk about This, Either

Surrender

Barca gave the lead in Spain away yesterday to a Sevilla side who deserved all three points. El Mundo Deportivo gives the ref some stick and the red card he gave to Ludovic Giuly was inexplicable, but by that point, Sevilla had already taken the lead, so it was somewhat pointless. The game was a lot like the Liverpool match: Barca played great for the first half hour or so, allowed an equalizer at the end of the half, and then sleep-walked through the second half. Daniel Alves is simply outstanding and Sevilla deserved to win because of him.

A few other thoughts:

1. Ray Hudson went wild for Barca's opener because of the quality of the cross from the right, but never noticed that it was Zambrotta who crossed, not Giuly. And the initial pass came from Oleguer in midfield. Barca's defenders might struggle with that whole "defending" thing, but they sure can pass.

2. Rafa Marquez remains crap. He got turned by Kerzhakov for the equalizer and nearly gifted Kanoute a winner early in the second half by tripping on the ball six yards from goal. Victor Valdes bailed him out there, but seemed to misjudge Alves's free kick for the winner.

3. Ronaldinho is quite good as a central forward. His play to draw the red card/penalty was sublime and would have ended the game and given Barca a five-point lead in the Primera if not for Palop's feet saving a penalty that was struck right down the middle. The match swung immediately after the saved penalty. If Barca lose the title to Sevilla, that'll be where they blew it.

4. Rijkaard's subs made no sense. He pulled off Ronaldinho for little apparent reason (unless Ronnie is really getting tubby). He brought on Eto'o and Saviola and left them with no wingers for support. Rijkaard's bad subs are why Barca struggle in second halves. They badly miss Henk Ten Cate, as without him, Rijkaard has been revealed to be a bit of a Don Shula: good strategy and no tactics.