ZoomSlowik

QUOTE(jackie hayes @ Apr 26, 2005 -> 12:49 AM) Baltimore had a great draft. Clayton obviously is one of the better receivers, and Cody was a steal in the 2nd round. Terry and Brown were both highly ranked lineman, a big area of need for Baltimore (youth and depth on the o-line). Derek Anderson fell pretty far, he's a good developmental qb. I don't know about the 5th and 7th rounders, but still, that's a very nice class. It's not just Kiper -- the Ravens have a reputation for drafting well. Look at their 1st round picks. All are still in the league, about half are stars, and there's only one bust (Travis Taylor -- which gives you some pause considering that they took a receiver this year, but we'll see). I'm definitely not knocking their draft history, they got some monster picks, and not just on defense. It's pretty sick when you think about it, getting guys like Lewis, Reed, Suggs, McAllister, Lewis, Ogden, Heap, even Boller looks half decent at times. I would not be surprised at all if Cody or Clayton become excellent players. I know they needed linemen, just not 100% sold on their picks at those positions. In the end though, I guess it will matter what these guys develop into, not what people think a couple of days after the draft.

QUOTE(southsideirish @ Apr 25, 2005 -> 11:58 PM) I loved Arizona's draft. I think they came away the biggest winners. Dennis Green always drafts good. I think they got the best defensive player in the draft in Rolle. In the 2nd they got the perfect fit at RB for Denny Green's system. He loves fast RBs. Really nice 3rd round pick with CB Eric Green. They drafted 2 LBs that they need desperately. SoxFan's buddy Elton Brown was a great pick for them. They needed help on the O-line and he can be a fantastic guard for them. The last pick was a WR who will probably only be on special teams and a return man if he makes the team. Overall it was a great draft. Is it just me or does Kiper always like Baltimore's draft? It seems as though every year he has them as one of the best. I don't know if he is from there or if he is in love with Billick, but something is going on there. I definitely agree with you on Arizona, they had a monster draft. Blackstock might be a stud, and Rolle, Arrington and Brown were great picks too. I also agree with the Ravens. Their first two picks were very good (Clayton and Cody is pretty nice), but I'm not sure about the rest of them. I'm also not so sure about Philly deserving an A. I also think that Miami and Minnesota did pretty well on their picks, they both filled some needs.

Well, Kiper liked the Bears' picks quite a bit. He gave them an A-. He thinks Benson has the makings of a star RB, Bradley will add some speed and special teams, Orton was a solid pick, and Curry will contribute. Other teams he liked were Arizona, Baltimore, Cincinnati, Dallas, and Philly.

The point isn't whether you can find a mediocre quarterback that gets by for a year or two in the later rounds. Clearly you can. But how many franchise-type QB's get taken on the second day of the draft? In the last 20 years it's basically Brady, with Young coming out of the USFL. Not exactly a high success rate there.

Hold on a second here, let's look at all of the top QB's in the league and where they went in the draft. Peyton Manning- #1 overall Dante Culpepper- #11 overall Tom Brady- 6th round Brett Favre- Second Round Donovan McNabb- 3rd overall Michael Vick (I know, he's a RB playing QB, he's still makes one of the biggest impacts)- 1st overall Steve McNair- can't remember exactly where he went, but he was either a late first or second round pick. To me those are the only major upgrades over the rest of the league. Only one of them was taken after the second round, and an arguement can be made that Brady wouldn't be there if he were on a weaker team. You do never know what you are going to get, but many more of the first round picks become successes than in the later rounds. The guys that stick around for the long run are more likely to be top picks. If you are looking for a backup that might step in and succeed as a starter for a year or two, then you can take a chance on a later round pick. But if you want to get a QB that is going to be an above average starter for many years, you almost have to take them early. More importantly, the success rate isn't any higher for taking players at other positions high in the draft. I'd much rather have a guy that was predicted to go in the top 10 by pretty much everyone than a second or third tier player at another position.

I see too much of Curtis Enis in this guy. I don't remember what Enis' 40 time was before he got hurt, but he strikes me as the same kind of back. He's a guy that runs with power despite the fact that he isn't that big (listed at 220, basically the same as Cadallac), and isn't exactly a burner. He's going to have a much harder time running over guys in the NFL, I could definitely see him taking a beating. I really see this as the same thing that happened in 98: we passed on a stud WR to take a solid but not stellar RB. Moss was really a game breaker in Minnesota, and I think Williams is too. I really think we blew it, especially since we already have Thomas Jones as a serviceable back.

I knew a guy that had almost the same raw numbers as me at my high school that applied to the same program and didn't get in. I was in pre-journalism (which is basically LAS for the first two years). We both had mid 3.8 GPA's at Fenwick, which is a private Catholic college prep high school where pretty much everyone goes on to a 4 year school (I'll put it this way, about 30 of us had U of I as our backup school, including me). We had similar SAT's at around a 1250, I got a 30 on the ACT compared to his 27 I think. He also submitted a number of writing samples and wrote a solid essay, I basically wrote a half assed one to submit. He was quite upset with that situation. I guess the moral of this story is kick ass on the standardized tests, that seemed to help a lot with the people that got in from our school, and hurt those that didn't get in.

I know the feeling, I went early decision at Northwestern and they basically told me to go screw myself. I ended up at Illinois. No complaints though, Illinois has been pretty sweet. Almost out of here!

QUOTE(whitesox91403 @ Apr 21, 2005 -> 02:54 AM) Thanks, I was trying to remember who was on that team for some reason. I thought Richard Jefferson and The PG Jason Gardner were on that team too though and then after the title game they all went pro but Gardner pulled his name back, oh well, I guess not. Anyway, where di you find that at? There are some other team I want to look up. No, those guys were on the team that lost to Duke in the title game in the 2001 season, along with Gilbert Arenas, Loren Woods, and Michael Wright.

It is best to just ignore Mike North. Anyone ripping on Pippen must be missing something. The guy was a fantastic player here and helped us win 6 rings. He was in somewhat of a tough spot too, and only rarely said anything about it. He was a great player but many people never really noticed because of MJ. Plus he was underpaid for a good chunk of his career (admittedly it was his fault for wanting such a long term deal). I got nothing against him and would love to see him involved with the Bulls in some way.

That might have made my day. I wish more of these people that have too much time on their hands would get seriously punished for the dumb stuff they try to pull.

Miles Simon is 6"5"? I really didn't think he was that tall. If that's the case I really don't know why he didn't get much of a shot at the NBA.

QUOTE(chi-guy2 @ Apr 19, 2005 -> 04:28 PM) chris taft declared for the draft, he could be a possible 2nd round pick by the bulls Not likely. He's probably not going to make it out of the lottery much less out of the first round.

I can honestly say I've never had a problem on half priced night, or at a Sox game period. I go to 6-10 Sox games per year with my Dad, roughly half of those on Monday or Tuesday. We always sit in the right field lower deck reserved seats and we've had maybe one annoying out of towner and no fights or near fights the whole time we've been there. I've also have never had problems when I had box seats, although the one time we were in left field a group near us was rather loud and drunk. I'm really sick of seeing threads like this. We don't need to blow these handfuls of incidents out of proportion. More importantly, did this really have to be brought up given the original post? I'm saddened by the fact that I am posting this on page 11, maybe 12 by the time I'm done typing. Do we really need to question whether the park is safe or whether there is enough security every time even the most minor fight or incident occurs? s***'s going to happen when alcohol is involved; I've learned that is inevitable thanks to my time on a major college campus. Hell, I got much closer to a fight on a couple of occasions at a Northwestern football game. However, the vast majority of us have no problems or incidents whatsoever in US Cellular.

My screen name was Jan Valenzueza My first name (Joe) gave me Buster Botswana My full name produced Bruno Sierra Leone

1) Alex Smith 2) Ronnie Brown 3) Aaron Rodgers 4) Braylon Edwards 5) Cadallac Williams 6) Adam Jones 7) Mike Williams 8) Cedric Benson 9) Antrell Rolle 10) Shawn Merriman 11) Derrick Johnson 12) Alex Barron 13) Marcus Spears 14) Troy Williamson 15) Demarcus Ware 16) Carlos Rogers 17) Thomas Davis 18) Dan Cody 19) Marlin Jackson 20) Mark Clayton 21) Jamaal Brown 22) Roddy White 23) Erasmus James 24) Shaun Cody 25) David Pollack 26) Travis Johnson 27) Matt Roth 28) Justin Miller 29) Kaliff Barnes 30) Heath Miller 31) JJ Arrington 32) Matt Jones Bears- 2nd- Ciatrick Faison 3rd- Michael Munoz

What the hell is going on in the game? Both ESPN and MLB are messed up and currently have Konerko batting. One of them has Crede with the 2 run homer, one of them has Iguchi. So who actually hit it and what is happening?

Yeah, I personally wouldn't want any of those 3 outfielders as starters much less all 3. Walker is passable but the others are mediocre at best.

Mussina is getting payed way too much money. $19 mil and he isn't even good anymore. I guess he's still way behind Park for being overpayed though, damn.

Too bad they lied on the Redick one. "Best shooter of the nation" my ass. Apparently they never watch Arizona games.

On the plus side, we can't lose the 3rd game in the next series.

That movie was around in like 93 when Frank was younger and a bit more fit.

I know Williams is raw, but he has a ton more raw potential. A lot of teams would rather take a guy that might be the next superstar in the high lottery than a guy that will be a solid but probably not spectacular player in the NBA, ie taking Howard over Okafor. We don't really know which route Charlotte would have gone because they didn't have the chance to take Howard, even if they claimed they wanted Okafor all along. Either way with their perimeter players I don't see them using another really high pick on a big guy unless he's the only top tier player left. Ideally I would think they'd try to get Paul or Felton, at least that's what I've been reading. I'll personally be interested to see how Bogut does in the NBA. In the few opportunities I got to see him he didn't show off a whole lot of post moves, although most players would struggle with that when triple teamed. I don't really think he's good for more than about 12 points a game right now.

It certainly doesn't make much sense that guys like Santana and Sheets are signing these deals. If Pavano can get 4 years and $40 million, just think what guys like Santana and Sheets could get on the open market. That doesn't seem like the best financial decision. I guess team loyalty just means more to some guys.

Billie Jean- Michael Jackson :puke