With the first pick in the 2008 NFL Draft, the ...
Exactly. . .although we are talking about Detroit, here.
Exactly. . .although we are talking about Detroit, here.
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With the first pick in the 2008 NFL Draft, the ...
Gyuri, everyone else has read me mention this about 20 times by now, but since you're new...
...DeSean Jackson went to my high school, and I've been calling him a future star ever since I saw him catch a TD on offense and switch over to play cornerback and return a pick for a TD in the CIF Southern Section championship four years ago. Take comfort that you have a guy that played for the mighty Long Beach Poly Jackrabbits, the school that's produced more NFL players than any other high school.Comment
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With the first pick in the 2008 NFL Draft, the ...
I am not sure what that means. (edit: in response to Gyrui's last post)
I hate to sound like a curmudgeon here (ha, just kidding, I love to sound like a curmudgeon!) but this is really pissing me off. The idea that you can defer your military obligation, at a time of war no less, in order to play football is fucking ridiculous.Comment
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With the first pick in the 2008 NFL Draft, the ...
It serves USMA's purpose. If guys know they don't have to rule out the NFL by choosing to play for Army, Army may get better football recruits. Better recruits means more wins (or any wins, in the case of Army, which has really sucked in recent years), beating Navy, a possible bowl appearance, better exposure and better morale at USMA, which in turn helps them get better applicants, which is particularly important for Army because Air Force and Navy are currently considered more desirable among the small subset of high school kids who want to go to a service academy and better applicants mean we get better Army officers.
Maybe all of that doesn't really serve the country all that well, but in the grand scheme of how our military spends money and runs itself, letting one kid play in the NFL every few years, instead of becoming yet another second lieutenant, isn't anywhere near the top of the list of things to get upset about.
And it's not like the kid is trying to shirk his obligation. Nobody would ever go to a service academy four years, athlete or not, expecting that somehow they are going to avoid getting shot at.Comment
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With the first pick in the 2008 NFL Draft, the ...
Soccer Scrimmage, after agreeing with you, I was attempting to make a quality-of-debate lowering snarky comment along the lines of: Yes, I agree with you that this is an odd policy (and somewhat offensive, though I also agree with Reed's post), but if any team in the NFL is suffering from a lack of football players, it would be the Lions.I am not sure what that means. (edit: in response to Gyrui's last post)
Inca,
I do remember reading, in my lurking days, discussions between you and UA about DeSean Jackson, but I completely forgot the context. I definitely hope you're right that he is a star-in-the-making. From everything I've seen of him, he's lightning fast and has good football sense, though I worry that he's a little too small (not just short, after all, Steve Smith has done quite well at that height, but slight). Regardless, I'm excited that the Eagles have him now.Comment
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With the first pick in the 2008 NFL Draft, the ...
Reed: while you are right it's a small thing, and that in fact it may actually be a net benefit to the US Army, it is still absolutely galling that West Point would choose to lower the military obligation of its students for the sake of a professional football career.Comment
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With the first pick in the 2008 NFL Draft, the ...
They lower academic and other responsbilities for football players while they're at the academy too. Football is important to the alumni.
The army isn't interested in what's fair, they're interested in what's best for the Army as a whole. If they wanted you to have an opinion, they'd have issued it.Comment
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With the first pick in the 2008 NFL Draft, the ...
They may lower the academic standards, but in the end everyone has the same obligations, obligations which are the fundamental point of the USMA. They've essentially altered that fundamental point for a fucking football player.
I am not so concerned about fairness or whatever--if there was a great scientist at USMA who was on the cusp of a breakthrough and they released her from her service obligation to pursue that, I wouldn't care. The issue is that the change, and again it's a fundemantal change, is being made for the sake of something that is essentially a social luxury. That's ridiculous.Comment
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With the first pick in the 2008 NFL Draft, the ...
I don't think USMA would agree that having a good football team is merely a social luxury. "Upon the fields of friendly strife Are sown the seeds That, upon other fields, on other days Will bear the fruits of victory." - Macarthur said that, supposedly. They really buy into that there.
Perhaps they shouldn't see it that way, and of course, if a guy gets out of being in the service so he can play football, then his lessons on the friendly fields will never be applied to real life.
But like I said, if letting one kid go to the NFL helps them recruit four or five other decent players they wouldn't otherwise get, then that's good for the football program and, for better or worse (mostly worse, I imagine) what's good for the football program is generally viewed as being what's good for the academy.
Football (athletics generally, but football more than any other sport) is an important part of the academy's history and traditions and the alumni care. Alumni support the athletic programs and, in many cases, are hold positions in the military and government that decide how much money the academies get. The school therefore has a strong incentive to make them happy.
I toyed with the idea of possibly going to an academy when I was a kid, in fact I stayed at USMA for one week for a special program for smart high school kids. It sounded sort of appealing - free education, lots of prestige, maybe get to fly jets, but then it sunk in that while being at the academy might be sort of cool in a lot of ways, being in the actual army (or air force or worst of all, the Navy) would not be remotely cool at all.
And really, it was an incredibly ridiculous idea to begin with. I could handle the academic stuff, but I'm not cut out for uniforms, getting shouted at, saluting, "pinging," hazing, or any of that. And this was in the days when getting killed in the army seemed pretty unlikely. Nowadays, I'd consider it irresponsible to join the service. My obligation to my own family to stay alive far outways my responsibility to "defend my country" in wars that have fuck all to do with defending the country.
Besides, the academies are really only a good educational choice if your goal is to be a manager of engineers. They do teach liberal arts, but the focus is almost entirely on engineering and leadership development.Comment
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With the first pick in the 2008 NFL Draft, the ...
Didn't this first come up in relation to Napoleon McCullum at Annapolis?
David Robinson was a somewhat different case because he actually had grown too tall to be able to serve on a submarine (which is what he had trained for).Comment
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With the first pick in the 2008 NFL Draft, the ...
Gyuri,
I'm already thinking about next year's draft.. With our first rounder plus the one we picked up from Carolina- if we play our cards right, we could end up with four 2nd round picks..
booya..Comment
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With the first pick in the 2008 NFL Draft, the ...
. . .and we can turn those into 10 4th round picks. It is pretty exciting.
Actually, I'm reasonably happy with this draft, given the fact that there weren't many home runs available after we failed to move up in the first round. My general view of Eagles' drafts are that the ones that piss off the Philly fans (McNabb, Shawn Andrews) tend to be better than the ones (Mamula, Freddie Mitchell) we get excited about.
Given that the Philly fan world is apoplectic about this one, I think it may turn out to be as good as the Giants' draft last year.Comment
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With the first pick in the 2008 NFL Draft, the ...
Yes, but I'm sure that had he not been one of the best basketball players in the country at the time, he would have had to find a job in the Navy, even if it wasn't exactly what he'd focused on at Annapolis.Comment
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With the first pick in the 2008 NFL Draft, the ...
That's true. In fact, my recollection is that Robinson had already been lined up for some sort of "super recruiter" role. Of course, the country wasn't at war when either Robinson or McCallum were drafted.Comment
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With the first pick in the 2008 NFL Draft, the ...
We're not really "at war" now. We're at "trying to create a military solution to a problem that even the top general admits has no military solution."Comment
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With the first pick in the 2008 NFL Draft, the ...
Dynamo Kev,
If you want a dose of Eagles-related optimism, read through the last couple days of posts at Iggles Blog. He is one of the better Eagles bloggers I've seen (ok, he's the only good one).Comment
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With the first pick in the 2008 NFL Draft, the ...
Well, a few months after winning The Greatest Super Bowl Of All Time, I have to say that whenever I'm feeling down, or run ragged, or feeling bad, all I have to do is picture Manning's pass floating in the air for an eternity to Plax, and a smile comes to my face 10 out of 10, and 1000 out of 1000 times.
I would wish even an Eagles fan to experience that type of ecstasy, I would even wish a Cowboys fan to experience a high like that continues to be.
I would wish every sportsfan on earth experience that kind of euphoria, because to deny it would be cruelty of the highest order.Comment
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With the first pick in the 2008 NFL Draft, the ...
In case anyone on this thread is interested, and didn't notice it stuck away in world:
create your own player.Comment
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With the first pick in the 2008 NFL Draft, the ...
Not anything to do with the draft, but could someone please shoot Arlen Specter before he strips the US Senate of its very last shred of its already beyond tattered respectability?
"Sen. Arlen Specter on Wednesday called for an independent investigation of the New England Patriots' taping of opposing coaches' signals, possibly similar to the high-profile Mitchell report on performance-enhancing drugs in baseball."Comment
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With the first pick in the 2008 NFL Draft, the ...
I think he's hoping that somehow its going to prove that the Patriots win over the Eagles in the Super Bowl is tainted. Either that, or he's just plain senile now.Comment
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With the first pick in the 2008 NFL Draft, the ...
I though he was trying to prove that the Pats win over the Steelers in the '04 AFC Championship game was tainted. Or maybe it's both. . .twice the idiotic high dudgeon.Comment
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With the first pick in the 2008 NFL Draft, the ...
Maybe that too, but he's traditionally more Philly-oriented.Comment
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With the first pick in the 2008 NFL Draft, the ...
Yep, though he had mentioned two Steelers games on the Senate floor yesterday, which I had seen quoted and was what made me think it was Steelers-related. Though he is a big Eagles fan, so it's probably both.Comment
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With the first pick in the 2008 NFL Draft, the ...
Just to play devil's advocate, isn't it possible that there's a slight justification for a senator to hold hearings on the NFL? It's a massively wealthy league, it's on the public airwaves, it's a big part of American culture and society. Congress got involved in the quiz show scandals in the 1950s, and the analogy doesn't seem completely off-base to me.Comment
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With the first pick in the 2008 NFL Draft, the ...
"he had mentioned two Steelers games on the Senate floor yesterday, which I had seen quoted and was made me think it was Steelers-related."
Typical Senate pandering.Comment
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