TrueBeliever
Hater hater
Here's da thing: I'm really big on character. I was pissed the way Tuna acted in '96 and then after he left NE for NY. I was pissed about Dave Meggett after the stunt he pulled with the hooker and I was glad we cut him after that. I don't like players who mouth off to the coach and/or take stuff public (Jeff George, Keyshawn).
To me Drew Bledsoe was the shining star of character. Even when it wasn't always his fault, he'd be the first guy telling the media "I can't point the finger at anyone else until I play a perfect game"; the way he handled it when he was traded to Buffalo, etc. etc.
So tonight I'm watching the Cincy game and the (Cincy) announcer is chiding Corey Dillon about "being ungrateful for the years of opportunity he had here." As you may or may not know, after Cincy's last game of the season last year Dillon threw his equipment into the stands as his way of saying he didn't intend to be back in '04.
So you'd think I'd think that was a really crappy thing for him to do. But I don't.
Here's why: Bungles owner Mike Brown is AN IDIOT. His refusal to accept that his father, the late great Paul Brown, had more football knowledge in his pinky toe than Mike has in his whole head made the Bungles the laughingstock of the league for over a decade. Mike insisted on running the show and for years the team went nowhere, even with one of the league's premier RBs on the roster. For a time the Bungles were the NFL's version of the L.A. Clippers - an organization filled with players who were just doing the best they could until they reached free agency and could get the hell out; an owner determined not to spend a dime over what he absolutely positively had to in order to put a minimally acceptable product on the field.
Take this example: I'll be the first one to say pro athletes are overpaid, but when Mike Brown would interview free agent players, he flew them in coach and expected them to pay for any expenses at the hotel above and beyond the room cost (i.e. no room service or even taking stuff out of the mini-bar). Cripes, the Division III University of Wisconsin school I went to treated professors they were interviewing better than that.
Brown should've done what the Packers did in the early '90's - seek out an above-average GM (Brown wanted to handle that job himself) who could pick a rising star head coach who could in turn convince a big-name free agent (the Packers used Reggie White) to come to your city and show that the rebuilding process has begun. Brown is finally doing that more or less, but his fans suffered through years and years of hapless squads before he finally got his butt in gear.
So even though I usually don't like players who piss and moan and pull stunts like Dillon did in Cincy, I can't really blame him either because of the situation he was in.
So there.
To me Drew Bledsoe was the shining star of character. Even when it wasn't always his fault, he'd be the first guy telling the media "I can't point the finger at anyone else until I play a perfect game"; the way he handled it when he was traded to Buffalo, etc. etc.
So tonight I'm watching the Cincy game and the (Cincy) announcer is chiding Corey Dillon about "being ungrateful for the years of opportunity he had here." As you may or may not know, after Cincy's last game of the season last year Dillon threw his equipment into the stands as his way of saying he didn't intend to be back in '04.
So you'd think I'd think that was a really crappy thing for him to do. But I don't.
Here's why: Bungles owner Mike Brown is AN IDIOT. His refusal to accept that his father, the late great Paul Brown, had more football knowledge in his pinky toe than Mike has in his whole head made the Bungles the laughingstock of the league for over a decade. Mike insisted on running the show and for years the team went nowhere, even with one of the league's premier RBs on the roster. For a time the Bungles were the NFL's version of the L.A. Clippers - an organization filled with players who were just doing the best they could until they reached free agency and could get the hell out; an owner determined not to spend a dime over what he absolutely positively had to in order to put a minimally acceptable product on the field.
Take this example: I'll be the first one to say pro athletes are overpaid, but when Mike Brown would interview free agent players, he flew them in coach and expected them to pay for any expenses at the hotel above and beyond the room cost (i.e. no room service or even taking stuff out of the mini-bar). Cripes, the Division III University of Wisconsin school I went to treated professors they were interviewing better than that.
Brown should've done what the Packers did in the early '90's - seek out an above-average GM (Brown wanted to handle that job himself) who could pick a rising star head coach who could in turn convince a big-name free agent (the Packers used Reggie White) to come to your city and show that the rebuilding process has begun. Brown is finally doing that more or less, but his fans suffered through years and years of hapless squads before he finally got his butt in gear.
So even though I usually don't like players who piss and moan and pull stunts like Dillon did in Cincy, I can't really blame him either because of the situation he was in.
So there.
o
