Palehosefan

That's how I took it as well. Though i don't really understand why he was running from his house, as if whoever was after him couldn't figure out his address and go after his daughter anyways. It would seem to make more sense to me that he would either take them with him and move away, or stay at home to protect them if all else fails. What a crazy story.

LJ is supposedly bigger and faster than ever, so it should be interesting to see what he does. I would take LT as well, as Rivers will likely depend on LT out of the backfield when he gets in any kind of trouble. Philip also lived off of the short pass at NC State to set his records, so I would expect Gates and LT to have huge years again.

Yes, it was definitely airbrushed. The blue part where the arm would be is smoother than the accompanying background.

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/columns/story?id=2545078 Wow.

My immediate thought when I heard it was that he was heading to a bank...

Hines first two years in the league he was transitioning from his college QB position to learning the WR position. He's the most complete WR in the game. He gets 1,000+ yards each year in a run dominated offense. Lets take a look at some teams passing numbers from last year. Arizona, passed the ball by far the most in the NFL, with 44 more attempts than the next closest team. Passed the ball 670 times. St. Louis, 4th on the list with 599 passing attempts. Cincinatti, 12th in the league in pass attempts with 538. Pittsburgh? Last in the league in passing attempts, 10 away from the next closest. 379 attempts. Arizona threw the ball 44% more of the time than Pittsburgh, St. Louis 37% more, Cincy 30% more. Yet Hines still almost managed another 1,000 yard season. Hines accounted for 33.3% of his teams passing totals. Compared to Holt's 32.9%, Fitzgerald's 31.8%, Johnson's 37.5%, and Smith's ridiculous 47%. Hines compares very well. You can't possibly be saying that Ronnie Brown, Cadillac Williams, or Thomas Jones are top 5 RB's in the NFL are you? Hines Ward is barely 30 years old, he's not exactly a geezer on his way down. As for Aaron Brooks, have you ever actually watched him play QB? Take a look at 4 of his last 5 years, not counting last year when he was without any running game, and a banged up Joe Horn for most of the year. 2001-2004 average season for Brooks. 3,690 yards, 57% completions, 25 TD's, 15 INT's, 240 rushing yards, 2.3 TD's Compare to say, Donovan McNabb Donovan McNabb's 4 best seasons. 3,422 yards, 58% completions, 24 TD's, 11 INT's, 422 rushing yards, 3.5 TD's Not bad huh?

So, I thought we were talking about the best receivers in the league, I didn't see the part where it said "the best receivers in the league over the last two years". Yes Hines belongs on the list. Hines last 5 years, 1,098 yards Fitzgeralds two years, 1,095 yards. Smiths 3 healthy years, 1,182 Neither Larry or Steve come anywhere close to blocking as well as Hines. Hines plays in a run dominated offense and helps pave the way for top 5 rushing clubs each year. He hasn't played in an open offense since 02-03 when he also happened to average 1246 yards and 11 TD's. Holt has played in "the greatest show on earth" his entire career, but belongs in the top 5 easily. Owens has put up great numbers regardless of the QB, and I can see his place. Chad Johnson now has enough of a track record to say he belongs as well. After that, it's very sketchy. You can say Steve Smith was the best receiver in the league last year, but doesn't have the track record of Moss, Hines, Marvin Harrison, and is even comparable to guys like Santana Moss, Rod Smith, and Derrick Mason. Same with Fitgerald and Boldin in Arizona, not enough track record. You can put Holt, Owens, and Johnson there safely, and Randy still has the talent, good QB, and is healthy again and will put up over 1,200 yards, 10 TD's, I guarantee it. The rest are very arguable.

Moss' demise is overexaggerated. Even in 2004 when he only had 767 yards, he still had 13 TD's. Last year playing with Kerry Collins, he only had 60 catches, but still managed over 1,000 yards again. Here's Randy's average professional season. 1268 yards, 12.25 TD's, 16 yards per catch. Randy will have a real QB throwing him the ball this year and other receivers that can take double coverages away from him. Randy belongs in the top 5, as does Torry Holt, Chad Johnson, Steve Smith, and Hines Ward. Hines has averaged 1,098 yards the past 5 years, with 8.2 TD's a year and dominating blocking to help the run game. He has never been in a high flying offense, yet puts up a thousand each year including the tough catches and yards, and is the best blocking WR in the game.

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fusea...iendID=90051596

Yikes. A guy cheats on his wife and 2 year old daughter and gets props for getting with a 19 year old?

My rankings would focus more on talent than rankings. I would rather see a 10-2 Florida team playing for a title than an 11-1 Utah team with a loss to say UCLA or TCU. Florida has a runningback by committee, which Urban has had all throughout his tenures at schools. Leak had a good season last year and should improve a good amount in year two of running Meyers system. Adding 3 very talented receivers including Percy Harvin, who is an impact player both as a WR and on special teams as a return man. I don't see any teams on Florida's schedule that are clearly better than UF, with several even matches such as Bama, Georgia, LSU, FSU, and Auburn. Bama, LSU, and Georgia are at home, so UF SHOULD have the upper hand. Playing at FSU, Auburn, and Tennessee isn't going to be much fun, but they are winnable games as well.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2006/foot....bar/index.html Very odd list. GT, Utah, Cal, and Nebraska, yet no Texas, Florida, or LSU?

http://rivalshoops.rivals.com/viewrank.asp?ra_key=1611 LMAO at their new rankings. Mayo at #5, Love at #7, Kyle Singler ahead of both. JJ Hickson doesn't belong anywhere near the top 25, much less the top 15. Anthony Randolph is easily a top 10 player, and they must not have ever seen Blake Griffin play, as he's played himself into the top 12.

I'm slow, are you saying he might be used in a waiver trade? Or are you saying he might be injured? Or maybe none of the above.

Steroids finally wore off. Atleast I think that should be in green. It's too bad really, I was very excited about his potential since his draft day. Was supposed to be our best SS prospect in a long time. Maybe he can still turn it around.

Roethlisberger will have the most weapons he has had in his short career this year, and will bring more focus, as well as a few less teeth. If Santonio Holmes can evade police on Sundays then Ben should be in the running. He won't throw for as many yards as Manning, Brady, Culpepper, Green etc, but he will do what needs to be done to win and put up 3,000+ yards.

I'm interested to see how close you guys came to putting Edwards in your top 20's, his numbers have been improving as an 18 year old in rookie ball.

I will take it even a step further. I have WV winning it all this year, and lots of couches will be burned. Combining their schedule, rushing ability, and defense, leads to atleast an 11-1 regular season, with the possible loss being at Louisville, which will be one of the best games of the year.

LeCount Fantroy is another crazy name on UNC's roster, or will be. We also had Dwight Fluker-berry as a commitment last year as well, not to mention Cooter Arnold in the same class.

Tech's defense should be their best yet, bettering their 30th ranked defense of last year. I think what most people don't realize is that even though Tech had a creampuff non-conference schedule, Tech's defense didn't have any dropoff in Big 12 play, and put up some very solid numbers. The main reason for the improvement is that the guys have been playing together for 2-3 years now, after being so young on defense 3 years ago. The DT's are both seniors and are talented and will be the most important positions on the squad, the DE's are unheralded but can stuff the run pretty well. LB's have some seniority on the squad as well and are pretty talented. Blake Collier and Franklin Mitchem, both 4 star freshmen LB's should provide some immediate help, especially Collier with his 4.4 speed. Keyunta Dawson, a pre-season Ted Hendricks DE of year candidate, is the big key along with the two senior DT's. If they can stuff the run against Adrian Peterson, Jamal Charles, etc, then Tech could have another very good season with double digit wins. Antonio Huffman leads the CB's as an upperclassmen, he was second on the team last year with 4 pass break-ups and an INT, Anthony Hines should step in at safety for the two departed safety seniors, the other cornerback and safety positions are still up for battle. Tech should have their most athletic defense yet, which isn't saying much outside of last year.

Vince Young leaving and being a home game, and Tech actually having a good defense now gives me alot of hope. OU losing Bomar and not having a legitimate back-up really gives me hope there. This COULD be the best offense that Tech has ever had, as both Graham Harrell and Chris Todd are the most talented options Tech has had at QB yet, along with 3 very good wide receivers and some nice athletic, but young options to "run" the ball. Losing at ISU wouldn't be very shocking to me. ISU was 3 OT losses last year from a very good year as you know. I think TTU will be REALLY up for the UT and OU games, and might have a letdown against a very good ISU team as well as TCU's different defensive scheme.

Should be a fun year. Bunting had great success his first year, then a few miserable years, then a 12-12 record the last two years against ridiculous schedules. This year the only two games I see being out of reach at the moment are at Miami and at Notre Dame, then again Miami doesn't get the best crowd support at home games, so who knows.

Yeah, Steve Spurrier always gives Duke a vote in the polls. He used to work there, and it's his way of saying, "Hey look how great I made that crappy Duke program for a while." I am getting the ESPN Gameplan package for the first time this year. I finally get to see some UNC games on TV this year, as if anyone else cares. For the fun of it, here's my prediction on my two teams win-loss totals this year. UNC W Sept. 2 Rutgers Chapel Hill 3:30/ABC W Sept. 9 Virginia Tech Chapel Hill Noon/ESPN W Sept. 16 Furman Chapel Hill 7:00/ESPNU L Sept. 23 Clemson Clemson, S.C. L Oct. 7 Miami Coral Gables, Fla. W Oct. 14 South Florida Chapel Hill W Oct. 19 Virginia Charlottesville, Va. 7:30/ESPN W Oct. 28 Wake Forest Chapel Hill L Nov. 4 Notre Dame South Bend, Ind. 2:30/NBC W Nov. 11 Georgia Tech Chapel Hill W Nov. 18 NC State Chapel Hill W Nov. 25 Duke 9-3 Texas Tech W Sep 2 Southern Methodist 7:00 PM ET W Sep 9 @UTEP 9:00 PM ET L Sep 16 @TCU 5:30 PM ET W Sep 23 Southeastern Louisiana 7:00 PM ET W Sep 30 @Texas A&M 7:00 PM ET W Oct 7 Missouri 7:00 PM ET W Oct 14 @Colorado TBD L Oct 21 @Iowa State 1:00 PM ET W Oct 28 Texas 2:00 PM ET W Nov 4 Baylor 2:00 PM ET W Nov 11 @Oklahoma 1:00 PM ET W Nov 18 Oklahoma State 2:00 PM ET 10-2, but I could easily see the two losses being to teams like the normal UT, OU, or even at Colorado. Should be a heck of a year in the Big 12 with about 5 teams thinking they have a legitimate shot at the Big 12 South, and quite a few in the North.

I can't even think of or find 20 prospects in our system that I would want to rank. I tried to make a list, but I had too many 23 year olds in A ball on my list, so I gave up. Pretty scary how raw and thin our talent level is right now.

Paul Thompson was moved to WR atleast for the time being. Supposedly JC recruit Joey Halzle will be OU's new QB. He's 6'4 220 pounds and runs a 4.58. Teams are going to stack 8-9 in the box again this year against OU, so we will see if he can throw at all. I know this, if Texas Tech or Iowa State don't win the Big 12 this year, we can forget about it in the future :-). Atleast I know thats true in the South division for Tech.