Just for Sport

Welcome to the inaugural NFL All-Overrated Team. A good portion of our Monday Night Football get-togethers involve a lot of complaining about overrated players, especially when the Vikings play and the MNF crew won’t shut up about Brad Johnson. So, we decided to put our money where our mouth is and come up with a team full of these guys. This team was put together by a committee of five self-proclaimed experts in the field. Here’s the criteria:

1 - Current players only. In the words of Mark McGwire, “We’re not here to talk about the past.”

2 - This is not a lifetime achievement award, but it’s not just a 2006 thing, either. We tried to take into account the past 3-5 years. We do have some rookies and second and third year players, so take that with a grain of salt. Certainly, it’s possible that many rookies who have a lot of hype surrounding them will improve, but you can’t really leave them off the list. We wanted to include the entire league.

3 - In order to be overrated, a player must have a certain amount of “rated-ness.” This is not a bad players list. There are some players that we consider to be very good, but not necessarily worthy of all the hero worship. It may be that there is a major flaw in their game that gets downplayed, or that their stats don’t seem to back the perception.

4 - We limited the number of players per position. In some cases this turned out to be good, others not so much. Our initial list of quarterbacks encompassed almost half the league, but we really struggled to fill out the linebacker corps. We ended up with 3 QBs, 3 RBs, 3 WRs, 1 TE, 4 DL, 3 LBs, 5 DBs, and 1 K. We didn’t do any offensive linemen, because we didn’t feel we knew enough about it.

5 - Once again, this team was picked by a committee. Not all of us agreed with all of the picks. In fact, each of us were dissatisfied with at least one choice during the process. I will be noting my grievances in the comments, and I will encourage the others to do the same. You, the reader, are encouraged to follow suit.

6 - The players are listed in alphabetical order. It’s not a depth chart.

QB
Brad Johnson
Eli Manning
Ben Roethlisberger

Our quarterbacks are represented by two young guys and a really old one. We felt that Eli got too much press for being in the Manning family, and Roethlisberger is one of the guys that isn’t spectacular, but doesn’t make many mistakes. He gets way too much credit for the work his teammates do (Terry Bradshaw syndrome). Brad Johnson’s merits have already been discussed.

RB
Reggie Bush
Edgerrin James
LaMont Jordan

Reggie Bush was destined to be on this team the moment a columnist compared the draft to the Sam Bowie/Michael Jordan scenario. He’s not a good running back, and the committee believes he would be best served by switching to a WR. Edgerrin James is starting to make us believe that he was a “product of the system” in Indy. He’s not even one of the three best players in Arizona right now. LaMont Jordan has been a bust in every sense of the word. In fact, one of our own drafted him in the second round, only to drop him. He remains a free agent in our league.

WR
Ashley Lelie
Jerry Porter
Mike Williams

Williams, a former first round pick, ended up getting cut this offseason. Lelie, also a first rounder, had no catches this week and has not been the “downfield threat” he is billed to be. Porter has been a disappointment, as he cannot even get on the field. Contrary to popular opinion, the committee believes it wouldn’t make a difference, anyway.

TE
Kellen Winslow

Behind closed doors (and on the internet), I call him “The Mouth.” It seems like Winslow always has something to say in the locker room, but never seems to be able to say it on the field.

DL
Courtney Brown
Ebenezer Ekuban
Dwight Freeney
Jevon Kearse

We feature two Denver Broncos on our defensive line. Courtney Brown was supposed to be the next big thing, and a 70 tackle performance in his rookie season added fuel to the fire. He hasn’t even come close to replicating that success, but commentators remain convinced of his prowess. He recorded 24 tackles in 14 games last season, and has been unable to make it the field this year. Ebenezer was also supposed to be the second coming in Dallas, but ended up frustrating Cowboy fans with his inconsistent play. Nevertheless, the Broncos sung his praises when they signed him. They’ve received a slightly better performance from him this year, but Texans know he’s not deserving of the national attention. Everytime an announcer talks about Jevon Kearse, they mention his nickname: “The Freak.” Kearse may be a fine physical specimen, but his play isn’t fitting of a man of his stature and hype. Dwight Freeney rounds out our line. Freeney is certainly an important piece of Indy’s defense, often drawing double and triple teams in pass protection. However, he is completely ineffective against the run, a fact that’s often downplayed by announcers and commentators.

LB
Lavar Arrington
Napoleon Harris
Joey Porter

Napoleon Harris is the anchor of my defense on my Madden 07 team. The game certainly rates him very highly, as do many talking heads. What’s that, you say? Minnesota is ranked #1 against the run? Not because of Napoleon Harris. In fact, you could say that the MLB on this team is the weak spot. Joey Porter often gets a lot of press because he’s controversial. However, the perception seems to be that he is also a good player, which he is not. He is largely ineffective unless he is blitzing. A good blitzer does not a good linebacker make. Lavar Arrington, however, takes the cake. There have been numerous games in the last few years where Arrington has ended up with 0-2 tackles, yet he commanded a large contract in the offseason and seems to be a media favorite. Honestly, I would not want this individual playing linebacker on my favorite NFL Europe team.

DB
De’Angelo Hall
Quentin Jammer
Pacman Jones
Troy Polamalu
Charles Woodson

The AFC dominates our defensive backfield. Charles Woodson has long been perceived as an effective #1 corner, but nobody on the committee would take him for a #2. Troy Polamalu gets a lot of press for his ridiculous hair and hard hits, but he lacks the ability to cover a receiver one-on-one. Pacman Jones is a good returner, but hardly a #1 cornerback, contrary to perception. Quentin Jammer is often praised for his coverage skills, yet teams continue to pick on him in the red zone and on deep passes - effectively. Interestingly enough, De’Angelo Hall was labelled as an overrated Cornerback in this article. Anyone who refers to themself in the third person should be better at what they do than Hall is.

K
Mike Vanderjagt

I started calling Vanderjagt “Wide Right” after he kicked that ball into Canada during the playoff game against the Steelers last year. Since he’s been playing for the Cowboys, I’ve noticed a trend: No matter the situation, the Idiot Kicker’s kicks always end up right of center. Field goals either go wide right or sneak in on the right side, his kickoffs end up on the right side of the field (on the 10 yard line!), even the extra points end up on the right side of the goal. I don’t understand how you can kick for a living and not find a way to fix this. He’s completely unreliable, even from short distances, yet he continues to be lauded as “The NFL’s most accurate kicker.” This may be true statistically, but one cannot argue his overrated-ness. He is definitely not as valuable as advertised, evidenced by the Dallas Cowboys no longer needing his services.

Yes, I included Mark McGwire. No, I did not include Jose Canseco. Maybe I am too sentimental, and that’s why I have Andre Dawson and Dale Murphy. At least I have Gwynn and Ripken, who appear to be the only consensus guys this year. I am prepared to back up each of my picks. Here they are:

Bert Blyleven
Andre Dawson
Rich Gossage
Tony Gwynn
Orel Hershiser
Tommy John
Wally Joyner
Don Mattingly
Mark McGwire
Dale Murphy
Cal Ripken Jr.

The following two things come from the Beating a Dead Horse Department:

1 - Someone in the national media has finally woken up. Wait - Reggie Bush isn’t Michael Jordan? But he did so well against Fresno State and Arizona State…it was supposed to be a sure thing!

2 - The Red Sox have officially become the Yankees. Boston and New York should join together and form a super-team, so they can be the first ones to pay $85 million dollars to some 13 year-old in Belgium for exclusive draft rights in 2013.

The common link between the two issues I find myself writing about most often? You got it…sports teams and sportswriters overrate potential. I blame it on Lebron James, the one athlete of this generation to even come close to living up to the hype. The very moment he scored 25 points in his rookie debut, we should have seen it coming. All of a sudden everybody wants to jump on the next big athlete’s bandwagon. For as long as it’s been around, ESPN the Magazine has published an annual “Next” magazine, where a large majority of the ink is spent projecting which high schooler will be the next Michael Jordan, Walter Payton, or Albert Einstein. It had just gotten to be ridiculous when they got Lebron right, so it made sense that that would start a feeding frenzy. And this is what it has led to…Large-market teams willing to pay over $50 million dollars just to talk to somebody (By the way, this money doesn’t count toward the luxury tax, does it? Try to tell me that the Shared Revenue/Luxury Tax system works now…) and entire professional teams are ostracized in the media for picking the “wrong” player before a snap is even played. Five or so years ago, Tank McNamara spoofed the whole idea with a strip that portrayed a major shoe company executive approaching a pregnant woman with a large shoe contract for her unborn son. At the time, it seemed ridiculous. Now, the “experts” seem to be capable of determining how well a 14 year-old will perform in the professional sports arena with no room for error. Signing a fetus to a shoe contract now would seem to be prudent, as the young man’s stock can only rise. Get them while they’re cheap! It can only get worse if Reggie Bush can somehow right the ship and Daisuke Matsuzaka’s gyroball is all Peter Gammons says it is. I’m personally rooting that they do, so that my wife and I can sign that Adidas contract in a couple of years.

I’m watching the UTEP-UAB game, and Jordan Palmer just made an amazing play. He dropped back to pass, felt the rush, broke two tackles, scrambled to his left (he’s right-handed) and completed a first down pass - on third down. Of course, the drive ended in a touchdown with a minute left to go in the first half. Yet the announcers for ESPN2 continued to debate the National Championship problem caused by the otherwise mediocre Rutgers Scarlet Knights. They didn’t even acknowledge the play. This has to be Reason #837 why I prefer professional football over its college counterpart: A great play was just shoved out of the way by controversy over the BCS - and the entire discussion had absolutely nothing to do with the game being shown! I was under the impression that I was watching a broadcast of a football game, not an opinion show about the Bogus College Sport. Soon, I will post about many of the reasons I see college football as inferior. Until then, be informed that a large portion of it has to do with the subjectivity of crowning a champion, and about how the rich get richer and the poor get poorer while we sit around and talk about the rich. That’s a metaphor - but it really happened.

Note: Sorry to those of you who have commented in the past. I didn’t realize that all comments were going to moderation mode. Comments you make should show up now.

For as long as I can remember I’ve been a baseball bigamist. I claim both the Chicago Cubs and the Texas Rangers as “my team.” I’ve explained this to more people than I can count, but I’ll do it again here. When I was growing up at home, I would always watch the Cubs on WGN during the day. I loved listening to Harry Caray, especially when he did the seventh inning stretch. There were players I liked: Ryne Sandberg, because of the hard-nosed way he always played second base; and Mark Grace, because I had his rookie card and he seemed like a good player to support. Of course, there’s Wrigley Field, the greatest sports venue in the country. A lot of my friends think I believe that because I’m a Cubs fan - really, I’m a Cubs fan because I love Wrigley Field. There’s the old-time scoreboard that’s so prominent in center field, ivy grows on the fences, and people watch the games from the rooftops. That’s probably the biggest factor - the Cubs could be one of the worst teams in baseball (and in the early 90’s this was never far from the truth) and the ballpark would be packed. People would show up for the experience of the game - when they sang “Take Me Out to the Ballgame,” they meant it. You have to understand that in the early 90’s in North Texas, I lived among a bunch of bandwagon Cowboy fans, so a team with such a strong following appealed to me.

There was also the Rangers. I learned about baseball from watching the Rangers with my Dad. We would sit on the couch and watch the game, and he would tell me what a hit-and-run was and why the pitcher had a rosin bag. We kept score, even if we were watching from home. In my scorebook many important events were immortalized, including a grand slam by Pete Incaviglia that was probably one of the most clutch hits in Rangers history (not a lot to choose from, I know). My first Major League game was at Arlington Stadium. The Rangers played the Oakland Athletics. Bobby Witt was pitching, and we lost. I remember cheering for Nolan Ryan to come in from the bullpen, believing it could actually happen.

That’s probably a little too much sidetrack. The point is supposed to be for me to point out that in the 2006 offseason, the Cubs and Rangers are going two opposite directions, starting their respective managerial hires. The Cubs organization is somehow deluded into thinking that grabbing the biggest name on the market is going to make them a winner. Getting Dusty Baker out of there was the right move - I’ll never forgive him for pitching Prior and Wood over 200 innings each in 2003 - but Lou Piniella isn’t the direction we need to be going. Maybe this team needs a little fire, but I think it needs somebody who can manage in the National League more than that. Also, we need a lead-off hitter and a bullpen.

I have some optimism for the 2007 Rangers. If we can somehow convince Matthews to come back and land one or two more pitchers (Matsuzaka, please!), we’re going to be okay. The more I hear about Ron Washington, the better. First off, I like the idea of taking people away from the Athletics. But this article makes me do backflips. You mean guys like Barry Zito, Jermaine Dye, and Torii Hunter are talking about the Texas Rangers because of our new manager?!?! Jon Daniels is even cooler than I thought! Maybe the Rangers could become the Tigers of the 04-05 offseason: all of the good free agents collectively decide to join one team because of its potential for growth. Hey, Jason Schmidt, we’ve got Barry Zito and the best infield in baseball. You want in on this?

Anyway, this offseason is a crazy one for me. I read that both of my teams put in bids for Matsuzaka, so unlike most fans, I’ve got about a 2-in-7 chance that my team will land him, rather than a 1-in-7 chance. Things are looking up for both teams (honestly, how can it get any worse than last year for the Cubs?). It would help if they would stop making useless trades with each other. Nevin for Hairston? Stop torturing me.

Okay, before I go, some input is required. I’m thinking about pulling a TMQ and nicknaming all of the sports teams I write about based on their mascot, team logo, collective persona, or other trait. My idea for the Rangers is: Texas Chuck Norrises. Perhaps the Cubs could be Windy City/B - until they win the World Series, in which they could be Windy City/A. Thoughts?