B-Easy Thinks Highly of Himself

After visiting the Official Website of Braylon Edwards, I can’t get enough of watching the intro to the site. Make sure you have your sound on-- the “B-Easy” tune by DJ Joey Fingaz is off the hook (or something?).

Braylon has proclaimed, “I’m back.” I’m not exactly sure where he went, or if he had ever even arrived to Cleveland for that matter. All I remember is his holdout his rookie year, his subsequent non-stop talking to the media and yelling at Charlie Frye his second season, and his abysmal performance to go right along with it.

The best part? He actually had to make up a situation where he did something good:

Pittsburgh 24, Cleveland 20. It’s the fourth quarter. 4^th and 25. Ball on the Cleveland 32 yard line. The play clock is ticking, 4 seconds, 3, 2…

And Braylon streaks down the field for a 68 yard touchdown, all the while throwing a Steeler corner to the ground!

Talk about the most generic “hero that saves the game” scenario possible. It’s a situation in which a young selfish and immature high school wide receiver would dream about.

But then again, that’s pretty much what Braylon is.

[BraylonEdwards.com]

Thanks to a retired blogger for the tip.

Hands off Limas’ Weed

Since the Texas Longhorns won the BCS Championship game on January 4, 2006, there have been eight current or recently graduated players arrested for various charges. To fight the problem, Mack Brown instituted a ‘zero tolerance’ policy regarding any University of Texas player arrest. Sergio Kindle and Henry Melton have already fallen victim to Brown’s new policy.

Obviously, this policy cannot continue. If you want to be a top college football program, you’re going to have to turn the other cheek on a few indiscretions throughout the year. You might think that Brown would have to drop the policy in order to avoid suspending the entire team, but you’d be underestimating the power of football in Texas. Somehow, Brown managed to have the Texas legislature pass HB 2391. HB 2391 allows for police to give tickets to, rather than arrest, people for certain infractions; such as, criminal mischief, theft, and possession of up to 4 oz. of marijuana. In short, it just got a lot harder to get arrested. There's no proof that Brown played an active role in getting this bill passed, but there is no doubt he's a staunch supporter.

Getting caught with 4 oz. and less of weed will now only be punished with what amounts to a parking ticket. I’m not sure how any school will be able to compete with Texas for the top recruits in the country now that this law has passed. At Notre Dame, you get suspended from school for a semester for having weed in your car, just ask Kyle McAlarney. The law just went into effect September 1^st, and might help to explain Texas' uninspired play against Arkansas State (they only won 21-13).

Austin Chronicle

ESPN.com

Heisman Watch

Preseason rankings are ruining college football. It’s nearly impossible for a team ranked out, or even in the bottom half, of the top 25 to win the national championship … just ask Auburn (Jason Campbell deserved better). This will once again be proven true by Michigan’s imminent inclusion in the latest polls ['receiving votes' counts], to be released today. Well, the preseason polls are not the only unjust rankings that negatively affect otherwise deserving candidates, the preseason Heisman rankings do the same thing. We’re here to correct the system, to wrestle power from the man, and reestablish the glory of the Heisman Trophy. For the rest of the season we’ll be ranking the candidates based on performance, rather than previous accomplishments, manufactured hype, and dashing good looks. Let's bully.

Week 1

1) Tiquan Underwood, Rutgers: 10 rec, 248 yards, 2 TDs

I’d like to introduce you to your Heisman front-runner. Underwood nearly matched his season total from a year ago in one game. That’s tough to do. I don’t think I’m ever going to put Ray Rice on this list, because everything he does should be directly attributed to Underwood. People would be crazy to think it was the other way around.

2) Colt Brennan, Hawaii: 34/40, 416 yards, 6 TDs, 0 INTs

Those stats are from one half. It’s pretty much impossible to be more efficient than Brennan. I don’t like that people regard Brennan as a Heisman candidate just because he’s actually respected by NFL scouts, when other system quarterbacks have gotten no respect. Clearly, judging by the success of former Heisman winners (Eric Crouch, I’m talking to you), NFL readiness doesn’t effect a player's Heisman prospects. Plenty of system quarterbacks have had overwhelmingly superior numbers to their counterparts yet weren’t even invited to New York. However, I’m of the belief that these players should be considered, so I can’t fault Brennan for being the best of the bunch, but I’m putting you on notice right now Colt … Graham Harrell is nipping at your heels.

3) Tashard Choice, Georgia Tech: 26 rushes, 196 yards, 2 TDs

This was a pretty easy choice (BOOM!), I saw this with my own eyes, nothing can convince me that Choice isn’t the best tailback in the history of college football. Choice quietly led the ACC in rushing last year, and if this continues, may lead the nation this season. So long as defenses refuse to believe that GT is running when Choice lines up at quarterback, he won’t be stopped.

4) Marlon Lucky, Nebraska: 30 rushes, 233 Yards, 4 TDs (including 1 receiving)

Luck has nothing to do with Marlon’s inclusion on this list (nice). His 233 yards were more than any Nebraska running back since Jammal Lord in 2002. He didn’t even play in the 4^th quarter of their game against Nevada. Nebraska has clearly not missed a beat since losing Brandon Jackson, Green Bay's new starting running back. The emergence of Sam Keller at quarterback should only increase Lucky’s numbers, as Keller did not play well in his first game at Nebraska.

5) James Davis, Clemson: 18 rushes, 102 yards, 1 TD

I tried to add people who actually played decent competition, but Davis was the only player that really stuck out. His TD run was absolutely awesome, and, since it was on national TV, it gets him on the Heisman watch list. Note to self: Don’t bet against Clemson @ Clemson.

6) Brian Brohm, Louisville: 16/25, 375 yards, 4 TDs, 0 INTs, 289.05 QB rating

Somehow Brian Brohm beat out Colt Brennan in “QB Rating” clearly the most confusing stat in football. I look forward to Logan’s column about the rating, but I refuse to believe Brohm had a better game than Colt. The only thing I can think of is that he averaged more yards per completion. Anyway, Brohm’s march to the number one pick, back in Bobby Petriono's loving arms, started out pretty well.

7) Dorien Bryant, Purdue: 2 KO Returns, 151 yards, 1 TD

I'll leave a spot open each week for an all-purpose type player. To this point, I’ve got to give the nod to Dorien Bryant. This was a difficult decision, considering DeSean Jackson’s unbelievable punt return against Tennessee, but Bryant had two great kick returns against pretty good competition in Toledo. This should be a tight race with the NCAA’s new rule change which moved kickoffs back 5 yards. Right now Bryant is in the lead, but I expect someone to separate themselves from the pack shortly. Bryant is going to absolutely rape Notre Dame, can’t wait.

8) Sam Bradford, Oklahoma: 21/23, 363 yards, 3 TDs, 0 INTs

This is the feel good story of these rankings; Bradford avoided all of the temptations that Oklahoma quarterbacks face and rose up to dominate North Texas. Instead of selling cars, Bradford was preparing for the season this summer, and all his work has paid off. We may have another Josh Heupel on our hands, in fact, Heupel is his quarterbacks coach. Get used to Bradford’s name in these rankings.

9) James Hardy, Indiana: 3 rec, 153 yards, 2 TDs

Hardy might be a legit candidate even for ESPN's talking heads. He’s had 10 TDs in each of his last two seasons, and he’s off to a pretty good start this year. So long as he’s averaging 50 yards per reception, we’ll leave him a spot on the list. Luckily for Hardy, these rankings don't take home attendance into account, he might have been screwed.

10) Graham Harrell, Texas Tech: 44/59, 419 yards, 4 TDs, 0 INTs

Harrell is the first big quarterback recruit Leach has wrangled into Texas Tech. He was the 16^th ranked quarterback coming out of high school. In week one they played SMU which is actually a pretty decent team. Texas Tech was actually only an 8.5pt favorite in this game, but Harrell’s offense blew them out of the water, 49-9. I love system quarterbacks.

Photos from ESPN, ESPN, and ESPN

Top 5 Real Men

This is contributed by Sammich. His internet isn't working, so I'm just posting it for him. Enjoy.

DISCLAIMER- At times during this rant you may think I am batting left handed but I can assure you I am straighter than Mike Piazza.

I am not talking about practice, I am talking about giant freaks that need some recognition. These guys might not be the best at what they do, but you will be scared to tell them that to their faces. Let's just get right into it...

#5 Shawn Crable

Okay this really pains me to do this but....


...Sorry Brady. Well Crable was born a day after Christmas and I'm guessing that wasn't a mistake. He is a 6'5, 245 pound linebacker with the speed of a corner back. As seen above, he clearly did not sack Quinn because Brady is too good looking to get sacked, but he is just tea bagging the clearly anguished QB. That would really hurt. Crable has turned into a leader on the fairly new Michigan defense and it looks as if he will have to do most of the work himself. Shawny boy will intercept at least 4 passes, earn 8 sacks, and kill 2 humans in '07.

#4 DJ Mbenga Who? DJ Mbenga

He can't speak English. He can't really play basketball. He has no reason to be on the court whatsoever. Sounds like a Mark Cuban kind of guy. Only put in the game to commit hard fouls, DJ Mbenga is the biggest man I have ever seen. I am pretty sure he was raised in the Congo by rabid apes but we just don't know for sure because he cant speak. I was at a Cavs vs Mavs game two years back and Lebron drove to the hole and was immediately pummeled by a forearm to the face. Yes it was Mbenga's flailing arm and Lebron took his usual 2 minutes of "I'm not really hurt, but I like to give people heart attacks" rolling around on the floor. Or to simplify things from now on let's just call it a soccer injury. (Completely off topic but I was watching some soccer game last week and was bitching about one of the players crying like a pussy but then they actually carried him off and he never came back. 1st time ever. I was shocked). Mbenga is 7'0, 255 pounds and also moves faster than the average giant. For his daily workout routine he does not lift weights, he lifts the entire facility, 3 sets of 10, and goes home.

#3 Batista... Yea I said it.

I absolutely will put a professional wrestler on here. If he played a real sport he would be #1, but he parties with the likes of John Cena and Booker T. It is very safe to say that this is a big man and I am going to guess that he works out at least once per week. Batista is 6'6, 290 and I bet his body fat is a solid 3% max. Basically he has muscles in places that I didn't even know were possible. No, those aren't 2 unborn fetuses attached to his neck, those are his traps. Batista starts every morning out with an unbalanced breakfast of 3 baby calves and steroids. If he was America's last hope to save the world, I wouldn't even be scared. Even Chris Benoit would be no match for Batista. If you ever get into an argument with this man the following strategy should be used: run around in circles until he catches you, kick him in the balls, oh shit he doesn't have them any more because of roids, brace yourself, Batista Bomb. Play dead.

#2 Ray Lewis

Ray stabbed a person. The witnesses were too afraid to accuse Ray. Ray go home happy. There's no point in saying anything, Ray is a freak.

#1 Brandon Jacobs

I haven't seen anyone run over this many people since Maurice Clarett (I don't care if I spelled that wrong he should be shot anyways). Before his running duties he was Auburn's wedge buster

and it takes a brave man to not move when he is coming at you. Oh, and here's full speed. Jacobs is 6'4, 265 and carries people like Spike from Little Giants. He is the clearly the most real of all men and that kind of sounded like saying he's more now (cringe).

The Contest Update

As our faithful readers already know, we will be having an ongoing competition during the year in which all the contributors minus Logan will attempt to succesffuly predict college football and NFL games. One thing you have to remember is that we are picking against the spread, not straight up winners. For those of you who don't gamble, this is pretty difficult and anyone who comes out above .500 has done pretty well. Forget successfully predicting all five games. That's pretty much impossible. You would have to be a complete badass to do something like that, so don't expect it.

I was planning on doing a "Beat of the Week" in which I pointed out who suffered the worst loss but no one really had any unlucky losses. Therefore, I'll use this space to point out how bad Buzzsaw's "Game of the Week" was. He told us to take the over in The Miami-Ball St. game and the line was set at 53. The final score was 14-13. Needless to say, I won't be following his lead this week.

Anyways, let's take a look at the standings after week one.

The Contest

	W	L
BigLots	5	0
Guy	3	2
Sammich	2	3
Buzzsaw	1	4

To sum it up, I'm pretty awesome.

Will Leitch was made an offer he couldn’t refuse

The Worldwide Leader never fails. This time, they may have nipped their problem at its source. The conductor of all bloggers, Will Leitch. I trust that you noticed Deadspin posted only once today. Well, here's what we at Log's Blog think happened:

You see, when sports blogging started, Leitch was the guy. And since blogging took off, Leitch became more popular and gained more power and readers. The head honchos of ESPN didn’t like this, so they went to see Leitch with a contract offer of $400,000 a year to write for ESPN.com, but Leitch said no. So the next day, the same guys went to see Leitch again, only this time with Chris Berman. Within an hour, Leitch had signed a contract of $80,000 a year.

How did ESPN sway him so, you ask?

Well, the head honchos made him an offer he couldn’t refuse.

Chris Berman held a gun to Leitch’s head, and the head honchos assured him, that either his signature or his brains would be on the contract.

That’s a true story.

That’s the ABC family, Kay. Not blogs.

Here is the original movie quote from The Godfather

Lingering Long Weekend Thoughts

• If I ever say that I think that the Mariners will win the Wild Card, I will punch myself in the face because I’d be lying. Before Monday’s win, they had dropped nine straight. Sounds like a pretty big collapse that everyone expected, but they’re tied in the loss column and down only 1 game to the Yankees for the Wild Card.

• The Indians beat Santana again today, 5-0. That makes him 0-5 for the year against the Lake Erie Warriors. For all related jokes to this news, refer to Sammich’s post from last week (Johan's 4th loss against the Tribe).
  

• Lots of college football happened. And a friend of the blog was actually at the Michigan-Appalachian State game. He and his brother have a rather new tradition where they pick a random college game every year to go to, and they stumbled upon tickets to this one about 3 weeks ago. Pretty random and lucky pick. Since it wasn’t on TV, here’s what he said happened during the final play of the game:

  Lining up for the field goal: Pure excitement, everyone standing, bedlam

  The block: collective “GASP!”

  The aftermath: complete silence (no one left their seats for ten minutes)

  What a way to go. If Youngstown State would have beaten Ohio State, I probably would have just laughed it off. That’s pretty much all Michigan fans can do. Except this one.

• I have the Clemson-Florida State game on. Florida State looks pretty bad, and James Davis just had one of the best touchdown runs I’ve ever seen. I’m sure you’ll see it on the highlights.

That is all. I should be back tomorrow with something of more substance.

Ohio State Season Preview After Game One: A Carl Contribution

I consider myself a pretty big Ohio State football fan, but a few things kept me from seeing the opener this year. They include The Big Ten Network and the fact that I-A teams don't lose to I-AA teams. Err, nevermind. So as much as I would like to grace you with my sarcastic comments about the Youngstown State game, I can't. So here is Carl's take. Enjoy witnessing his blogging cherry being popped:

This Ohio State team isn't nearly as scary as the past two teams, but that's when Coach Tressell is at his best. Three of the last four games this season are @ Penn State, vs. Wisconsin, @ Michigan. Yikes. I have no reason to think that they are a national championship threat, but here's how they looked on Saturday anyway (broken down positionally):

Offensive line

Bad? Yes. Real Bad? Maybe. Terrible run blocking. Not bad pass blocking for Todd Boeckman (who we'll get into in a minute). In this year's Sports Illustrated college football preview, the Ohio State section was all about Alex Boone and the rest of the offensive line, yet they were the unit that struggled the most on Saturday. I don't get it. If this line hasn’t gelled by Big Ten Season, the Buckeyes could be in for trouble.

Quarterbacks

Solid, considering who they are. Boeckman (pictured) is a statue in the backfield and can definitely be considered a true pocket passer. Actually, if he is on the run at all, his accuracy is completely shot. We'll see how this goes all season, unless of course he is replaced by St. X Bomber Rob Schoenhoeft, who is a surprisingly good runner with a strong arm.

Running backs

Beanie Wells looked pretty bad considering he was getting national media attention in the preseason. In fact, in the news today he said he didn't play as hard as he could have. That's encouraging. It just seems like he tries to take on too many bodies and wants to break a ton of tackles. As for the rest of the backs, freshman Brandon Saine played well in his debut. There is no doubt he is the faster player on the team. And for those Maurice Wells haters out there; he played well for Maurice Wells. Handing it off to him up to the middle is about as efficient as a Boeckman quarterback draw but in the open field he usually lives up to his nickname, “Florida Flash.” But that's what we pay him to do. I mean, thats why we gave him a scholarship.

Defensive Line

Lawrence Wilson is out for the season. That is not good. Vernon Gholston (pictured-- he is kind of ripped) had a pretty quiet game, but I expect that to change.

Linebackers

Nothing special. Laurinaitis had a solid game and he is a very good player, but despite Buzzsaw’s constant lobbying for Laurinaitis to win the defensive player of the year award last year, I don’t believe that he was the best defensive player in college football last season. Maybe that's just me. Also, Larry Grant had a good debut starting.

Secondary

Malcolm Jenkins is good. Anderson Russell seemed a bit shaky but that is expected after returning from a serious injury.

As far as the defense as a whole goes, it was that same bend don't break bullshit—it works but its sure frustrating.

Back to Tressell being at his best with teams that we don't expect anything out of, his playing calling was pretty vanilla on Saturday. As always, he showed nothing. But we all know that’s how the sweater vest operates. Another important note: a lot of guys saw playing time. Second and third stringers saw action as early as late in the first quarter. This just means he is still feeling out exactly what he has and who works well together.

What does it all mean?

2008 NATIONAL CHAMPIONS

On a more serious note though, there is no reason this team shouldn’t be unblemished heading into State College on October 27. That game will show how good these Buckeyes really are. Logically I would say 10-2 this season but there is a still a part of me that finds this team very similar to the one in 2003. We Shall See.

You Won’t Like the Man-Genius When He’s Angry

The following video is from Kansas’ demolition of Central Michigan, one of the favorites to win the MAC conference (Kansas won the game 52-7). Early in the game, Raimond Pendleton had a 77 yard punt return for a touchdown. To celebrate the play, Pendleton dove into the end zone. Someone on the sideline had a camera and recorded Kansas coach Mark Mangino’s reaction. It’s scary.

“Look what the fuck you did. And you did it all on your own, didn’t you? You did it all on your own.” Mangino promptly sent Pendleton to timeout. It’s like he’s scolding a kid that shit on the carpet.

It's Investing, Not Gambling

I've never been much into politics, it makes me feel dirty; and with Daris having died and Logan fleeing the country, I didn't think there would be much more political talk in these parts, let alone by me. However, those feelings faded when I realized I could bet on the presidential race.

Well, betting is the wrong word, the government is too classy for that, it's more of a stock market. I don't know all of the stock market lingo, so bear with me. As it stands right now in the Democratic race for the presidential nomination, Clinton is worth 67 cents on the dollar, Obama is 19 cents, Edwards is at 6 cents, and the field is at 7. The Republican nomination looks like this, Giuliani at 33cents, Romney at 28, Thompson at 17, and McCain at 10 cents.

My question is this, why don't we all put a shit load of money on Thompson? He hasn't even announced he's running yet, but he's one of the main contenders. Is there any doubt that, when he does announce his campaign this Thursday, his price will skyrocket? Guy, I posted this for you, it seems like something you'd jump on. I'm sure I'm missing something though ... I'm just a simple man, I don't understand all this stock market business.

I apologize for the awful post, I just got back from a politics class where I found out about this, I should have something really awesome later today. Hopefully my compatriots wake up, they're all hung over. Biglots should have a gambling contest review post that will tear my ass apart, I went 1-4, the loses weren't very close either. I'm the man.

Political Stock Market