Buccaneers Finally Going Throwback

by | Aug 17, 2009 | NFL Uniforms

One note that somehow got past me this summer, but I discovered last week while on the road to Canton, was that the Tampa Bay Buccaneers are finally going to unveil their throwback uniforms this season.

For some reason, the Bucs old creamsicle-orange jerseys and Bucco Bruce logo have always been amongst my favorite NFL uniforms–so much so that I even have a Derrick Brooks throwback hanging in my closet.

I haven’t been able to find confirmation, but it appears from the Pewter Report article above that they are targeting the November 8th game against the Green Bay Packers–renewing the old “Battle of the Bays” from the old NFC Central days.

I can only hope that the Bucs throwbacks, combined with the AFL throwbacks to be used this season in honor of the 50th anniversary of the league, and the 49ers going back to a uniform design more in line with their glory days will be the spark needed to finally do away with pastel and monochrome in the NFL.

Zoneblitz Visits “Hallowed” Ground

by | Aug 7, 2009 | Football Road Trips, Football Stadiums

Our road trip to Canton for Saturday’s Pro Football Hall of Fame induction has thus far been mostly baseball focused–hence our posting updates primarily over on our baseball blog.

But yesterday, while cruising through Indiana, we took a brief stop in South Bend to visit the beautiful campus of the alma mater of a friend of Andy’s.

And, while we were there, we took a quick jaunt through Notre Dame to check out their football stadium too.

Last time we were in this part of the country, we visited THE Ohio State University to check out their stadium-and I have to admit, I was a lot more impressed by theirs.  Although Notre Dame’s stadium appeared to allow better close up access (although we chose not to park and walk around, as we were a bit behind schedule thanks to traffic in Chicago), it wasn’t nearly as impressive in size, and it really appeared to be just a basic bowl from the outside.

We were able to see just a little bit of the field through the open tunnel that the players make their famed walk through on game days, but the whole area, including Touchdown Jesus looking down from above, just wasn’t that impressive to me.  Granted, it’s probably a lot better atmosphere on game day, rather than a random Thursday afternoon during summer.

Other than that, South Bend seemed like a quaint little college town-we didn’t nearly explore it to it’s fullest, in part because we were looking for a place for lunch-and from the highway to downtown, all we found was McDonalds and Burger King (although, we finally found a little restaurant/bar right by campus called Mulligans that had some decent  stacked sandwiches with fries in the sandwich.

Today we’re off to Cleveland-it was our original intent to tour Cleveland Browns Stadium today, but when we called last week to make reservations (per the instructions on the Browns’ Web site), we found out that they are not doing tours any more “this season.”  Thanks for keeping that part of the site up to date, Browns-although, I guess that’s the way your organization has been run since you got back in the league.

Rosenhaus Tweeting To Cause Problems with Teams?

by | Aug 4, 2009 | Business of Football, NFL Breaking News

Drew Rosenhaus (@RosenhausSports) has quickly become a big fan of Twitter, updating his 23,000+ followers of the status of several of his numerous NFL clients, like announcing his firm’s signing of Bryant McKinnie or that Mike McKenzie is healthy, has worked out for the Seahawks, and expects to sign somewhere soon.

I wonder, though, how teams will start reacting to his updates, when they may impact their attempts to improve their team.  For instance, this morning, Rosenhaus tweeted:

“The Vikings have informed me that they will be waiving receiver Aundrae Allison by 5pm today if he isn’t traded first.”

As far as I can see, this tweet effectively eliminates whatever little leverage the Vikings may have had in a trade situation–after all, why would a team that’s short on WR and kick return talent give up a late round draft pick for a guy who’s going to hit the waiver wire in a little more than 7 hours?

It makes sense from Rosenhaus’ perspective–if his client is traded, he has no control over the team he lands with, and there is no new contract signed, meaning Rosenhaus doesn’t get another commission.

But if you’re the Vikings, would you put up with Rosenhaus announcing their intentions to the world?  They may have informed Allison/Rosenhause merely in good faith, so it was clear why he wouldn’t be on the practice field today, since they wouldn’t want him getting hurt after the roster decision had been made.

Now, if I were the Vikings, I would consider not waiving him until the end of camp, merely to spite Rosenhaus.

Randall McDaniel: Class of 2009

by | Aug 3, 2009 | Hall of Fame

We’ve been quite vocal about our belief that Randall McDaniel not only should be in the Hall of Fame, but that he should have been a first ballot guy.  In a little less than a week, McDaniel will finally be honored by the Hall–and, of course, we’ll be there for it.

In advance of this weekend’s festivities, we’re going to be looking for a lot of the local profiles that are being written by the inductees–starting with McDaniel.  The Star Tribune ran an impressive story about him Sunday, that illustrated many of the reasons that I’ve always found him to be one of my favorite players–from the quality of his play, to what an outstanding & humble person he is off the field, where today he works full time teaching kids with special education needs at a local Minnesota school.

Unfortunately, in their effort to make people buy the print edition of the paper, it appears that they have not put it on their Website (at least yet)–so I can’t link to it.  We’ll update this story with a link when (if) they get around to it–but in the mean time, here’s a video interview that they did with him.

UPDATE: This article isn’t the same one that appeared in the paper Sunday (despite a very similar headline), but it’s decent.

Steve McNair: Hall of Fame?

by | Jul 8, 2009 | Hall of Fame

Well, Tony P. already asked for it–and to be honest, I thought about putting it up, but my thoughts on the matter are fairly straight forward, and I wasn’t sure it was worth the post.

Plus, it’s come up before, here and here (and before we go all cynical on Tony P. for saying yes in one place, no in another, I believe the no is in reference to him being a first year guy).

But now ProFootballTalk.com has posted the question, and since we do seem to talk a lot about the Hall of Fame here, I figured we better do it here too–especially since frankly I think we’ve got a better group of Hall of Fame minds discussing Hall of Fame matters.

So the question is–is Steve McNair worthy of the Pro Footabll Hall of Fame?

If my math is right, he’ll be eligible in 2013–the same year as Michael Strahan, Warren Sapp, Jonathon Ogden, Larry Allen and more.

McNair’s stats include 31,300 yards, 174 TDs vs. 119 Ints, 82.8 career rating, 60.1% completion percentage, and 37 rushing TDs.  He appeared in one Super Bowl, was a 3-time Pro Bowler, was not ever a 1st team All-Pro, and won one co-MVP in 2003.

Non-tangibles that may come into play, whether they should or not, would be his reputation as a gritty player who would play through pain, although he also did miss a lot of games (at least 28 after becoming the full time starter, by my count), the fact that he was the first highly drafted black QB from a smaller, traditionally black school, who had a team built around him (there were teams that had been built around black QBs before [Warren Moon], and black QBs drafted in the first round [Doug Williams], but none that were drafted as high as #3).

Information forthcoming around the circumstances of his murder could also be on the minds of some voters. Like I said, these are non-tangibles that probably shouldn’t be considered, but the voters, although members of the media, are also (mostly) human.

So what say you, OUR voting members?  Leave your rationale in the comments below…