Same Ol' Same Ol'

September 2, 2011

2011 New York Jets Season Preview

The fan of the 2011 New York Jets is an interesting creature. He has seen his team reach the penultimate game of the NFL season for the last two years. Some people might say that he has been spoiled by such recent success, and they might have a point if they have no grasp of the history of this franchise. For the long-suffering Jets fan, this recent success has come at the price of drowning in mediocrity for most of the last 30 years. Although they call the largest media market in the United States home, the Jets have perennially played second fiddle to the more established, more storied, and simply, more successful New York Giants. Multiple losing seasons (1-15, 3-15, 6-10 win-loss records have been the norm more so than outliers) have jaded fans so much so that any glimmer of success has been accompanied by an impeding anticipation of disaster. So while the past few trips to the AFC championship game have definitely provided hope and small sense of pride to the supporters of the Green and White, most fans over the age of 20 have learned not to build their hopes too high. For years, the phrase that would come to most fans to describe their squad would be “Same Ol' Jets” (or “Just End The Season”, if they were masochistic and had a hankering for acronyms). Starting quarterback injured on the first drive of the first game of the season? Same ol' Jets. Using your first pick in the NFL draft on a kicker? Same ol' Jets. Having the first player in the history of the NFL to win the Comeback Player of the Year award twice because he suffered season-ending injuries twice? Same ol' Jets. High draft picks like Blair Thomas and Vernon Gholston being claimed “savior” and never even sniffing the hype thrust upon them? Yep... same ol' Jets.

This most recent incarnation of the Jets, however, has given its fan base a new outlook on their team. Third-year head coach Rex Ryan has turned the football punchline of New York into a consistent winner. The first draft pick of his tenure, QB Mark Sanchez, has displayed a penchant for late-game heroics, and he has formed his defense into one of the most feared units in the league. Between the acquisitions of big-name playmakers (RB LaDanian Tomlinson, LB Bart Scott, and CB Antonio Cromartie among others) and classic press conference soundbites (“I never came here to kiss Bill Belichick's rings”), Ryan has created a team with the talent and motivation to compete for a championship.

The 2011 team enters the season looking to continue on the success of back-to-back trips to conference championships. With the exception of DE Shaun Ellis, replaced in the offseason by rookie DE Muhammad Wilkerson, the defense returns its entire starting lineup. This continuity in Ryan's complex defensive scheme will ensure that the Jets remain at the top of the league in defensive efficiency. Star CB Darrelle Revis, hampered by a hamstring injury early in the 2010 season, comes into the year completely healthy and ready to lead his team. His take: “Last year holding out and coming in late, yeah, my game wasn’t where it needed to be. The first two games and then I pulled the hamstring against Randy [Moss], and then I came back too early. I wasn’t 100 percent, but that’s no excuse; I wanted to be out on the field and play. I picked up the second half of the season and finished strong, but this year is kind of like a revenge thing: I’m coming back and I’m coming back strong.” Along with veterans Scott, S Jim Leonard, and LB David Harris, the Jets should make good on that promise of revenge.

While the defense is clearly the strength of the team, an improved offense is going to determine if the Jets can improve on past years' successes. Ryan has continually espoused the philosophy that the key to success in the league, along with a stellar defense, is an offense which can control the tempo of the game with an efficient and bruising running attack. To that end, the Jets' offense has been an complete success; statistically, it has been the most dominant unit in the league under Ryan's tenure (averaging 2565 rushing yards in the past two seasons). In order to prevent teams from using that obvious run-bias to their advantage, the Jets have also made it a point to improve their passing game as well. Sanchez has organized multiple team activities over the last two offseasons to improve his rapport with his receivers, and working WR Santonio Holmes and the underrated TE Dustin Keller at his “Jets West” camps have clearly helped with his development. In addition, the Jets replaced WRs Jerricho Cotchery and Brad Smith with WRs Plaxico Burress and Derrick Mason, reasoning that adding experience (Burress and Mason have a combined 23 years in the league and over 19,000 receiving yards) can further increase the firepower of the Jets passing attack.

A strong, if not slightly insane head coach, stability on a top-tier defense, a more potent offense, and the best special teams coach in the NFL (ST coach Mike Westhoff has made the names Leon Washington and Brad Smith synonymous with “kick return studs”) give fans of the New York Jets a serious reason to believe that their team will once again be a serious contender for the AFC crown. Sure, the Patriots bring back an all-time great QB Tom Brady, the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Baltimore Ravens are regular participants in the postseason, and the Chargers finished last year with the top-ranked offense and defense, but Ryan said it best last season: “Yeah, same ol' Jets... going to the AFC championship two years in a row.”...

...Third time's a charm, right?

(cross published at FnB.com)

budget nudgin'

News Alert: Obama’s Debt Plan Pairs Cuts With Higher Taxes on Rich

Gonna be a dicey one; his campaign has kicked off. 
Ending bush's tax cuts? GOP gets ticked off. 

Solid idea, has chance to cut the deficit; 
But will he really do this? Not guaranteed just cuz he says it. 

To win 2012, gotta lean left and lean right. 
I like the proposal...ok, I'll bite. 

We'll see where this goes, he's gotta cut spending too; 
and if he doesn't? well... i pity the foo.

#nerdalert

more evidence of Ken Griffey Jr's amazingness

The title may lead you to believe that I've written about Ken Griffey Jr., centerfielder extrodinaire, in a previous post.  I haven't, but if every time I've had my "first baseball chat" with someone over the past 15 years, if the conversation went longer than 10 minutes, I've gone into significant detail why the great pro sports tragedy over my lifetime has been the injuries that have derailed the career of the greatest baseball player ever.
(run-on sentence?  i'm back, baby!)

Joe Posnanski of the Kansas City Star and Sports Illustrated has one of the best blogs for baseball nerds on the internet.  In his latest column, he tackles an interesting subject: Zero Intentional Walks.  He finds the 5 seasons in history in which a player has 35 or more home runs without being intentionally walked, and he then analyzes why they had the statistically quirky season that they had.

The excerpt about my boy:

Alex Rodriguez (1998)Hit 42 homers without an intentional walk

Main batter who hit behind him: Ken Griffey

Comment: Here is the golden one. Who was SO scary a hitter that managers simply refused to walk A-Rod? And, yes, A-Rod was absurdly good in 1998. He had been absurdly good for three years. He was INCREDIBLE as a 20-year-old in 1996, leading the league in hitting, runs and doubles. He was plenty good as a 21-year-old in 1997. And in 1998, he hit .310/.360/.560 with 42 homers, 123 runs, 124 RBIs, 46 steals and a league-leading 213 hits. He led the league in WAR. Oh, everyone knew all about A-Rod. 

But, much like Mantle, much like Chipper, managers were not going to walk anybody to face Ken Griffey in the 1990s. Griffey mashed 56 homers in 1998, just like he had in 1997, and he did it with such style and grace … and I really do believe that plays a part in the managers’ mindsets. I mean, sure, 56 homers is 56 homers. But there was something about Griffey that seemed classical and legendary even before he WAS classical and legendary. He always felt like a player out of time — he was Buck O’Neil’s favorite player, the one who reminded him sometimes of Willie Mays, sometimes of Ted Williams, sometimes of Oscar Charleston, sometimes of Turkey Stearnes … 

In any case, managers intentionally walked A-Rod TWO TIMES in more than 2,000 plate appearances from 1996-1998. That was the power of the young Ken Griffey Jr.

awesome. 

Missing the Point

In response to Grant Hill's rebuttal to the "Fab Five" documentary aired on ESPN (also, take time to read at least the first page of comments to get the general idea of what the majority of readers thought)...


Jalen Rose clearly states that these were his feelings when he was a FRESHMAN at Michigan. He also states that the reason these feelings came about were because he was JEALOUS of Grant Hill's family situation. The adult Jalen Rose admitted that he had immature feelings as a kid and also recognized, as an adult, that they were not justified in truth! I'm glad Mr. Hill is defending himself and his teammates, but Mr. Rose made it clear that he doesn't believe the same things that he thought as an 18-year-old kid now that he is a grown man who has a lifetime of new experiences.

The fact that everyone thinks this rebuttal is "amazing" makes me think they are rushing to judge Mr. Rose unfairly. If anything, Jalen Rose should be commended for realizing that WHEN HE WAS A FRESHMAN IN COLLEGE, he didn't have the proper perspective in life, and now that he is older and wiser, he very much realizes who wrong he was in making those characterizations he made as a child. Of course Grant Hill should be proud of his family and his upbringing, but here are a few other feelings that Mr. Hill should show, if he wants to really take a "big picture" look at things: pity, for seeing Jalen Rose's upbringing, and appreciation, for realizing that someone who came from so little and who had such a limited world-view at 18 years old was able to, in 20 years, recognize the folly of his adolescent ways and grow up to lead a just-as-successful life and Mr. Hill himself has.

I hope all of the viewers who have been so quick to jump on Grant Hill's high horse can take the time to see the context of the comments that have been lambasted all over sports radio and blogs and realize that it wasn't a reflection Mr. Hill at all; it was allowing a world set far apart from Southwest High School in Detroit to see that same world through eyes of a street-tough but immature and inexperienced boy saw.

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Another good take on this is by Bomani Jones at his blog:  http://www.bomanijones.com/blog/2011/03/15/parsing-uncle-tom/

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post-script:
just adding a bit of dialogue i've had with one of my favorite long-distance friends (pretty sure i haven't actually seen her in over ten years)


SR: glad to see you're blogging again =)  but i don't think that Jalen Rose's admission of being a bit ignorant when he was 18 (who wasn't?) makes Grant Hill's column any less well-written, touching or "amazing"... i shared this story bc it's good and worth sharing, imho, not because i'm jumping on Grant Hill's high horse


Me: To me, at least, the whole tenor of the column is finding fault in a comment that Jalen himself admitted was incorrect. All of the statements that Grant makes are statements that are not in dispute at all, and at no point does he give context to the voice that made the accusation.

I guess my whole take is that we have to ask ourselves this... What is the more noteworthy story to discuss: that Grant Hill was called a name 20 years ago that all parties deem immature and inappropriate? Or that there were kids who were 18 who were coming from poverty, and then immediately bombarded with inordinate amounts of bad press, hate mail, and death threats for doing nothing but being themselves which, while being unusual in community like U of Mich., wasn't even illegal?

Piggy-backing off of that, I think it's kind of amazing that the "uncle tom" comment is the lightning rod of the doc while everyone just lets all of the racist taunts and threats that the kids received, mostly from seemingly more "mature" adult alumni, pass by with nary a mention. The Rose/Hill interaction was a very small part of the piece, while the public's reaction to the Fab 5 was pretty much the entire story... And yet the former explodes in the sports media universe and the latter is barely discussed. And it sucks, because I thought the doc was really good, and no one is talking about it as a whole.

I think Hill takes a cowardly way to approach a difficult subject. He's defensive, and he's attacking, rather than trying to promote healthy ideas and feelings. Michael Wilbon wrote a much deeper and philosophically responsible article than Hill did. Yeah, I know, Wilbon's a writer and Hill isn't... But check that out, and then let me know if you understand where I'm coming from.

and here's a link to Wilbon's article

pray for japan. not nic cage.

Risk of Meltdown Spreads at Japanese Plant

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/15/world/asia/15nuclear.html?_r=2&hp

TOKYO — Japan faced the likelihood of a catastrophic nuclear accident Tuesday morning, as an explosion at the most crippled of three reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station damaged its crucial steel containment structure, emergency workers were withdrawn from the plant, and much larger emissions of radioactive materials appeared immiment, according to official statements and industry executives informed about the developments.

terrifying.  "likelihood of a catastrophic nuclear accident"... that's not supposed to happen in real life. that's supposed to happen in bad summer blockbusters with nic cage and a wise-cracking, been-there/done-that older mentor/boss figure who busts balls but has a heart of gold and sheds a tear when the countdown to the accident is approaching zero and he realizes he's about to lose the son that he never had because his biological son was actually killed in a science experiment gone wrong during the first year of his Ph.D. program and he almost can't bear to see history repeating itself...

but in that make believe world, everything turns out ok.  i'm hoping and praying for the best with our japanese brothers and sisters.

(this is how i cope with apocalypse-type events)

some shots from killington

Should I make a separate blog for photography? It's a good idea, but I'm thinking that for right now I'm going to make sure that I remember to post pictures, first and foremost. If I start posting a lot more, then I might make a photo-only forum. Anyways, here are some pics from my first ski trip in a while. I was rolling solo on the trails, so I stopped a few times to take some shots with my point-and-shoot. I couldn't always get the exact perspective I was looking for, but a few of these came out ok I think.

bilzzard shots

these are a few attempts at snowstorm photos... i'm sure i'll have plenty more chances this season to go for a couple more, but here are a few (it was too cold to travel too far):