Tuesday Afternoon Linebacker

And so the era of the offensive lineman begins at One Buc. Hopefully Messers Joseph and Trueblood will be around as long and be as good as one Paul Gruber. USF standout Andre Hall was not selected by any team in the draft, but he did sign as a free agent with the Bucs. Kevin McMahan was selected last in the draft and earned the dubious honor of Mr. Irrelevant. Oh yeah, college teams wrapped up their spring practices over the last few weeks.

Offensive Lines
A guard, a tackle, and two tight ends. I guess the Bucs finally decided to address the O-Line, eh? First round pick Davin Joseph is big and has football smarts, which is good around here. He’s also versatile, having played all across the line at Oklahoma. In the second round, the Bucs picked up Jeremy Trueblood from BC. He is also a big dude, tipping the scales at 316. He should be pretty good alongside Joseph in the next year or two. The pair of TE’s will need to work on their blocking drills it would seem.

I would have liked another pick at DB, but the two they got seem to be good fits for the team. Zemaitis looks to be able to play all the positions in the defensive backfield. And I just don’t get the pick of QB Gradowski. We could have used that on another DB or even a line backer maybe.

But in the end, it’ll be these late round guys that make the team better for the long haul, so we’ll have to see what’s what come February.

Who Dat?
So, Reggie Bush didn’t go first. Instead he went second to the Saints. And as John said this weekend, that pick should now make the NFC South the best in football. Of course, that means that the division champ will escape at 10-6 or something and get a 3 or 4 see while the Seahawks and whoever decides to win the North skate to 13-3 or 12-4 to lock up the byes.

Seeing Vince Young go ahead of both Leinhart and Cutler kind of surprised me. I fully expected him to be the last of the three to be selected because of his “style”. But I guess I was wrong. Leinhart to Arizona should prove interesting. Maybe he’ll be the next Kurt Warner and take a cellar dweller to the top. Or maybe he’ll be the next Jake Plummer, and struggle in the desert only to find true success on his next team. Cutler to Denver looks like a match made in heaven.

Nineteen of the first 32 picks went to defense this year. Which includes 5 in the top ten. TALB has no idea what this means. But it makes it look like I’m actually analyzing the draft. Which of course, I’m not. If you want that crap, go read Mel Kiper’s website.

One Last Time
Tags really really wants a team in Los Angeles. So much so that he wants to get something started before he leaves in July. I’ve discussed why I don’t think the NFL needs to have this raging desire to get back into LA. Maybe when the new Commish takes office he can take a step back and see this for the folly that it is.

My Crystal Ball Must Be On The Fritz
Before the start of the 2005 NFL season I made some predictions on which teams would be Good, Mediocre, and Bad. Let’s see how I fared, shall we?

The Good
Patriots - 10-6, AFC East champs, lost in divisional round of playoffs
Falcons - 8-8, no playoffs
Eagles - 6-10, no playoffs
Colts - 14-2, AFC South champs, lost in divisional round of playoffs
Chargers - 9-7, no playoffs
Vikings - 9-7, no playoffs
Chiefs - 10-6, no playoffs
Steelers - 11-5, wild card, AFC champs, Super Bowl Champions
Jaguars - 12-4, wild card, lost in wild card round of playoffs

I managed to select four playoff teams and the Super Bowl champs. Plus only one team in this section didn’t reach at least .500 at the end of the season. Not bad, but not great either.

The Mediocre
Bucs - 11-5, NFC South champs, lost in wild card round of playoffs
Cardinals - 5-11, no playoffs
Lions - 5-11, no playoffs
Packers - 4-12, no playoffs
Raiders - 4-12, no playoffs
Jets - 4-12, no playoffs
Broncos - 13-3, AFC West champs, lost AFC championship game
Titans - 4-12, no playoffs
Seahawks - 13-3, NFC West champs, NFC champs, lost Super Bowl
Rams - 6-10, no playoffs
Ravens - 6-10, no playoffs
Bengals - 11-5, AFC North champs, lost in wild card round of playoffs
Panthers - 11-5, wild card, lost NFC championship game

My mediocre picks pretty much polarized to either good or bad. Four division champs and a wild card out of 13 clubs. The rest couldn’t top 6 wins.

The Bad
Bears - 11-5, NFC North champs, lost in divisional round of playoffs
Dolphins - 9-7, no playoffs
Saints - 3-13, no playoffs
Texans - 2-14, no playoffs
Bills - 5-11, no playoffs
Browns - 6-10, no playoffs
Cowboys - 9-7, no playoffs
Redskins - 10-5, wild card, lost in divisional round of playoffs
49ers - 4-12, no playoffs
Giants - 11-5, NFC East champs, lost in wild card round of playoffs

I did a little better here, selecting the worst teams in the league correctly. However, a pair of division champs snuck in, how was I supposed to know?

Bucs’ Schedule Prediction
Now that the Bucs’ official schedule has been released, I can compare it to my hopeful prognostication from the post-mortem. What follows are the number of predictions that matched the listed criteria.
Completely Correct Predictions: 1 (Week 13 @ PIT)
Correct Week: 2 (PIT above, and CAR in week 3 though I had us going there.)
Within 1 Week: 1 (I had a home game against ATL in W15, turns out it will be W14.)
Prime-time Games: 0 (so far)
Only the Turkey Day tilt against the Cowboys and an MNF contest against the Panthers are
scheduled for post-sunset kickoffs. Though that Pittsburgh game could look mighty tasty
to NBC should both teams perform as they did in 2005.
Correct Half of the Season: 5 (not counting division games).
PHI and the Bye are in the first half and CLE, PIT, and DAL in the second.

That last one was for my ego, so I could say that I got nearly 25% of something right in the prediction. Once again I prove that a TALB prediction, plus a dollar, will get you the Sunday paper.

If you’re into reading about the most superest drool-o-rific games from around the rest of the league simply consult your favorite sports news outlet. I’m sure they have someone who has predicted the top-5 or 10 games on the slate based solely on last year’s performance and/or possible story-lines (DAL-PHI, DAL-CAR, MIN-MIA anyone?).

Football In 2016
For fun I thought I’d take a look at what football might look like in 10 years. Some of this will be kind of serious, some veiled criticism, and the rest just pure satire. This will be an occasional series throughout the season.

Over in the college game, this fall will mark the start of the NFL College League. NFLCL is made up of most of the teams formerly in the BCS (SEC, Big 10, Big 12, Pac 10, Big East, ACC). Notre Dame, Tennessee, and West Virginia declined to join the league and remain in the NCAA. Whilst Conference USA standout Marshall was invited to join to round out the field of 64 teams. Each season the teams will compete to play in the National College Championship presented by VerizonT&T. The game will be held at a different classic college stadium each year. The inaugural game will feature the champions of the Eastern and Western conferences playing at the historic Los Angeles Coliseum. Next year the game will land at the renovated Orange Bowl in Miami, for the 2018 championship the teams will face-off between the hedges in Athens, and for 2019 Sun Devil Stadium will host the game. Beyond that, the league is eyeing The Swamp, Doak Campbell, and “The Big House” in Ann Arbor.

Traditional rivalries have been preserved as much as possible with the new alignment. Most of the previous conferences or divisions were allowed to remain intact. However, necessity has forced some teams to be split from their long time conference-mates. For example, SEC powerhouses Florida and Georgia were grouped with FSU, Miami, USF, Louisville, Kentucky, and Georgia Tech to form the South Division of the Eastern conference. While Vanderbilt was moved to the Heartland Division in the Western along with Ohio State, Michigan, Michigan State, Cincinnati, Kansas, Kansas State, and Illinois.

Other Divisions:
Eastern-Atlantic: South Carolina, Duke, North Carolina, Wake Forest, NC State, Clemson, Virginia Tech, Virginia
Eastern-Northeast: U Conn, Boston College, Syracuse, Rutgers, Marshall, Maryland, Indiana, Purdue
Eastern-Gulf: Auburn, Alabama, LSU, Arkansas, Ole Miss, Miss. State, Baylor, Texas Tech

Western-Pacific: UCLA, USC, Arizona, Washington, Washington State, Stanford, Cal
Western-Mountain: Colorado, Missouri, Oregon, Oregon State, Texas, Texas A&M, Oklahoma, Nebraska
Western-North: Pittsburgh, Iowa State, Iowa, Penn State, Minnesota, Northwestern, Wisconsin, Oklahoma State

Each school is allowed up to a $1M “payroll”. The first $900K must be divided equally among all players. Five Club players, designated by the school, are then allotted the remaining $100K. A Club Player retains his status until he leaves the school. The roster for each school is limited to 85 active and 15 inactive players. Red-shirted players do not count against the roster number, however they also do not receive a stipend. The schools are free to continue their athletic scholarship programs as they see fit.

The schedule is made up of 14 games. Seven division games (alternating home-and-home year-to-year), three intra-conference games, three inter-conference games, one “flex” game, and one bye week. The inter and intra-conference games use a similar formula to the NFL’s pro schedule. Each team will face the teams from their brother conferences that finished in the same position the year before. The flex game is controlled by the school. The only restriction is that the game cannot be against a school not in the NFLCL or NCAA Division I-A. So far, most flex games have been used to play against NCAA teams that have not joined the NFLCL; such as Florida’s week five contest against Tennessee.

The NCAA is, of course, reeling. Sixty-four of the top programs (out of last year’s 125 team Division I-A roster) have left the organization. The bowl system is in collapse. Six bowls folded within 30 days of the announcement of the new league last February. Eight more are in jeopardy. The “classic” conferences have sucked up the mid-majors and independents as quickly as they could. The new SEC, for instance, looks like a mish-mash of the defunct Conference USA and MAC. The ACC has all but folded after only attracting eight teams from the leavings of the new SEC. The Big East was the first former BCS conference to close up shop. The SEC, Pac-10, Big Ten, Big XII, and ACC are the only remaining conferences in I-A play. The bowl shakeout continues to this day as organizers of the Capital One Bowl announced that they would not be holding a game after this season. When the dust settles they may be as few as six or as many as ten bowls left this holiday season. The shake-up has been so drastic that the NCAA is now, finally, thinking seriously about a playoff system. This is in hopes of salvaging some value from the conferences’ various TV contracts, most of which are set to expire at the end of the 2016 campaign.

Fan reaction has been mixed to say the least. StopNFLCL.com is among the busiest sports websites on the planet right now; with their forums bristling with pro and con arguments. Though no league school has reported a significant decline in ticket sales as compared to last season.

The first season of the NFLCL kicks-off in mid-September as last year’s BCS champion UCLA takes on rival USC. While the NCAA starts a week later, after hastily arranging a three-week round-robin between Tennessee, West Virginia, and Notre Dame; seen as the new leaders of NCAA football.

A Spring In Their Step
Up in Gainesville, the revamped offensive line showed promise throughout the spring program. In the Orange and Blue game, it looks like they protected Leak and Tebow sufficiently. Granted, it’s a controlled scrimmage and few defensive starters took the field. And against that defense both of Florida’s quarterbacks excelled. Tebow was a little ahead statistically, but Leak was playing against the better of the two defensive squads.

It looks like Tim Tebow might be everything he’s cracked up to be. But again, it’s just one spring game. We’ll see how he does come this time next year. Or, should things go south for the Gators, later this season.

Around Tallahassee the doctor is in. Several key injuries may once again show up as depth problems later on. Though, at the QB spot, things are looking up for the infidels as all three are showing potential.

Down in Coral Gables defense ruled the day as the unit made three take-aways against the Canes’ retooled offense.

And finally over at South Florida, Pat Julmiste and running back Walt Smith led the White squad to a 36-10 triumph over the Green team. Smith ran with authority and looks like a solid replacement for the departed Andre Hall.

Running Items
Grated Cheese
He’s back. Though Javon Walker got shipped to the Mile High City for a second round draft pick.

Oh Ricky!
I guess whatever he’s learning in India or wherever does not include anything about learning from your mistakes. Ricky Williams was suspended, again, for a violation of the NFL’s substance abuse policy. This time for the entire 2006 season. Which means that should he decide to return in 2007 he’ll have played in all of twelve NFL games since stepping off the field at the end of 2003.

West Coast Offense Barbie
SI.com is running a series of stories about a rather attractive woman football player. Yeah, like beauty contest winning attractive. Be warned, the initial story contains a picture that shows her cleavage, so click with appropriate caution for your surroundings. I’ll keep up with this as the football season progresses.

Plus One Bowl
Let’s try…. Ohio State vs. Miami

Super Bowl XLI
Maybe Denver and Minnesota

Team TALB
TALB is always looking for fresh insight and additional input. If you want to submit something to be included in TALB, please feel free to contact me and I’ll get it put in the next edition.

King Of Football
As always, feel free to submit your entry for TALB’s King Of Football 2007. It will appear during the off week between the NFL conference championships and the Super Bowl (January 30, I think).

Next Time: The season before the season. It’s Pre-Season Madnesssssssssssssss