Jimmy vs. Sammy

April 1st, 2010 | By boadurichard

There’s no denying that the man under center is either going to make or break your team. The top two quarterbacks going into this month’s draft are Oklahoma’s Sam Bradford and Notre Dame’s Jimmy Clausen. Who would you take if you had to pick one?

Sam Bradford

Sam Bradford won the Heisman trophy in 2008 and led his Sooners to the National Championship game that same year. In his career, he tossed 88 tds with only 16 picks, completing 65% of his passes and throwing for 8,327 yards.
Vitals: 6′4″ 236 lbs.
Accuracy: On point
Arm Strength: Strong Enough
Leadership: Leads by example
Mobility: Can avoid the rush and keep plays alive
Winner: I’m a believer

Pros: Big, tall and above average athleticism. Pinpoint accuracy. Performed well against top flight competition under lots of pressure. He makes quick decisions with the ball. Bradford went 23-5 in his time as the Sooners starting QB.

Cons: Ran a spread offense and rarely took snaps under center. Although he’s put on weight he’s seen as injury prone.

Overall: It will take Bradford some time to adjust league like it does all NFL rookies. Hopefully he lands in the right situation, which is not the Rams. If he lands with the Redskins and Mike Shanahan he’s good to go. I really worry that he could become the next Todd Blackledge and not the next Carson Palmer because of the spread offense he ran in college.

Jimmy Clausen

Clausen comes from a quarterback family with both of his older brothers playing in college. He was all world coming out of high school. I didn’t give him any love his first two years and thought he was overrated. I took another look at the tape and just realized he was pretty good and just didn’t have the supporting cast on offense or defense. Clausen flourished in his last year with the Fighting Irish throwing for 3,722 yards, a 69% completion rating, tossing 28 tds and only 4 picks.

Vitals: 6′2″ 222 lbs.
Accuracy: Uber
Arm Strength: Strong Enough
Leadership: Questionable, he’s a cocky sun of a gun though and I like it!
Mobility: Mobile enough
Winner: Not sold, but the kid has moxie

Pros: Clausen played in a pro style offense under a pro style coach/offensive coordinator for three years. He’s NFL ready. He lead his team with no defensive help and a non existent running game. His deep ball looks gorgeous!

Cons: Word on the street is that he’s a rich punk. He’s not a leader in the huddle. Too many off the field distractions.

Overall: I like Clausen, a lot! The cons don’t bother me, he’s 22 years old, what do you really expect. The fact that he’s NFL ready and been trained by Charlie Weis in invaluable.

Who am I picking?!?!?!

Clausen. Yes, I said it. I’m Sooner born and Sooner bred. I’m a huge Bradford fan. I was a Clausen doubter for his first two years. He won me over this year after I took a step back and looked at his predicament. He’s NFL ready, he threw 28 tds and only 4 picks in a pro style offense often times playing from behind. Now, I know Notre Dame’s competition was not on the Big 12 level of Bradford’s, but the pro-style offense of Charlie Weis is what I’m banking on with Clausen.

That’s all I got,

Ricky Writer

Wednesday Football Wonderings….

November 18th, 2009 | By boadurichard

Yo what’s good. I’m going to run down a list of things that are still on my mind two days after the last week of football was played. Don’t worry next article will be about upcoming games this weekend.

First things is this, please get off of Bill Belichick’s back. He made the call point blank, bottom line. This man has three Super Bowl rings and should have had a fourth. He’s made countless risks before that have worked out just fine. In reality, he got a really bad spot. The only two bad decisions he made was calling a timeout before deciding to go for it on 4th and 2 giving the Colts a chance to get prepared for the play. The second mistake was not blitzing Peyton Manning after they didn’t get the didn’t get the conversion. I’d rather him blitz Manning and get burned early for the TD so they’ll have time to score rather than later with virtually no time left on the clock.

Maurice Jones-Drew’s coach influenced decision to not score the touchdown at the end of the game was a bad decision. They were down. Please stop saying it was a smart decision like Brian Westbrook made a few weeks ago. It was not, the Eagles were winning that game, the Jaguars were not winning. It is too big of a risk. The only reason Belichick gets a pass because he’s won three out of four Super Bowls in one decade.

Bob Stoops to Notre Dame? I don’t see it happening. I really don’t. He’s damn near a legend in Oklahoma. Granted, he’s not being fully appreciated as he once was, but he’s been in this position before in 2005 when they went 8-4. He’ll bounce back, I mean hell, look at all the injuries he’s had to deal with this season.

Now, these Mike Shanahan to the Chicago Bears rumors sound legit. They signed Jay Cutler to way too much money and gave up too much to get him last Summer, so Cutler is not going anywhere. Someone will be punished for all these loses the Bears are suffering. If it’s not the GM then it’s going to be head coach, Lovie Smith. Shanahan makes sense. Cutler played his best football for Shanahan in Denver last season throwing for over 4,500 yards and 25 TDs.

Why does this college football season suck so much? I knew something was up when highly touted true freshman Andre DeBose wasn’t going to play this year for Florida because of a hamstring injury, that was my omen. There are no clear cut stars. Jahvid Best was on his way, but his offensive line stopped blocking for him. Colt McCoy’s thrown too many interceptions. Jevan Snead is not who we thought he was. Tim Tebow has no one to throw the ball too. Jimmy Clausen plays for a Notre Dame team that has no defense, and Sam Bradford was done the first game. Cincinnati is undefeated and Mardy Gilyard is playing his ass off, why is he not getting any love. Yes C.J. Spiller is playing on a mediocre Clemson team, but he is by far the best player in the country and he should get some Heisman love as well. If only TCU or Boise State had a star, or Cincinnati marketing Mardy Gilyard.

LaGarrette Blount was reinstated to Oregon last week. Although he didn’t play, it was nice for his coach Chip Kelly to reinstate Blount. Now my confusion is this, Lane Kiffin boots Michael Edwards and Nu’Keese Richardson off the team for their role in an alleged attempted robbery with a pellet gun. It is similar to the Maurice Clarrett situation a few years back. Kelly didn’t ban Blount from the program and kick him off the team, he rehabilitated him. I wonder how Clarrett would have turned out if he had been given the opportunity to be rehabilitated and not left virtually naked in Columbus by Ohio State. I’m not condoning Clarrett’s actions, but you wonder how he would have turned out to be honest. I wonder what will happen with Richardson and Edwards. Both are only true freshman. Someone in the country will pick these two kids up. Kiffin’s reasons were that it would be hard for him to go into homes on recruiting trips and tell parents that their sons would be safe at Tennessee when he has players on the team robbing people. It is a very true statement from Kiffin, but I wonder what the coach that signs these two kids will say when he visits potential recruits. Do these kids get any slack for it only being a pellet gun? I’m not saying give them any, I’m just wondering because I am not a lawyer. Anyway, I’d love to hear your thoughts on what you think.

Last thing on my mind is the BCS rankings. Are they even necessary. BCS comes out in Week 7. I think we should push it back to Week 9, and start letting the AP and Coaches start voting at week 6. It usually takes about six weeks for a team’s true character to show. We can’t do away with the BCS anytime soon, so why not control the most important thing which is the rankings. Where a team starts in the preseason rankings is the most vital component of the BCS rankings if you ask me. Let’s be honest, say TCU didn’t start out #17 in the preseason polls, and they were not going to be ranked until week 6, I am positive that some voter would rank TCU better than Florida right now. Honestly, the BCS doesn’t screw teams, (please don’t say Texas got screwed by the BCS, Texas got screwed by its own conference three way division tie breaker rules) the voters and polls screw teams. So we might as well do away with the polls until mid-season. Sound good? Great. Thanks for listening.

That’s All I got,

Richard Boadu

Monday Morning Cornerback: Week 2

September 21st, 2009 | By boadurichard

Yo what up! It’s call full circle. Pop Warner, High School, College, and Professional football is under way. Shout out to the UFL starting up in October, but for now, my life is complete. This is the 2nd week of the Monday Morning Cornerback where we get you covered on all angles. Let’s go in.

Best Games

Michigan defeats # 18 Notre Dame

Thank God. This is how a Michigan vs. Notre Dame game is supposed to look. Michigan won the game on the heels and poise of their Frosh QB, Tate Forcier, who played phenomenal. Jimmy Clausen of the Golden Domers played great as well. He is finally living up to his potential. They lost the game not because of their play but their defense started to wear down and get tired.

The main reason they wore down was Charlie Weiss’ need to throw the football. I have no clue why, but Armando Allen, Jr. was totting the rock for the Irish very well all game long. The Irish’s second to last offensive series, Weiss threw the ball way too much. Allen started the drive off with 13 yards for a 1st down, but turned an ankle. Nevertheless, Weiss bailed on his running game, and ran two straight pass plays which fell incomplete and took no time off the clock. The rest is history. Michigan marched down the field and won the game.

Bills vs. Patriots

The start of the game was very slow and sloppy. You expected that sort of thing from the Bills but not the Pats. Brady was off target most of the game and there were several times he was gun shy about throwing the ball to Randy Moss in tight spots. Instead he chose to toss the pill to Ben Watson, twice in the final minutes of the game for two touchdowns.

The Bills simply self-destructed. The played great defense all night long. They scored points. They also have several bullet wounds in their own feet. Trent Edwards looks like young Jedi Knight that has no control over his own brilliance. The second to last series he looks like a Pro Bowl QB and the last series he takes two sacks when his team only has one timeout. Now that I think about it, he looked like an Pro Bowl QB, because Bills were gashing them with great interior runs and Edwards used and abused the play action. I don’t know T.O., I wouldn’t stand for this sloppy QB play if I were you.

The 6Magazine brass was expecting a great wr duel between Randy and T.O. but we got nothing. Thanks Tom and Trent!

Biggest Surprise

Did Colorado get beat 38 – 54 by Toledo? Let’s be honest Coach Hawkins, you can’t recruit a better QB than your own son? I know Colorado isn’t what it once was, but you have tons of talent in Cali, Texas and Colorado to pull from. This isn’t intramural brother, it’s D-1 football, get a real QB!

Eh, nothing really jumped out at me NFL wise to be honest.

Quick Cuts and Jukes

- Matt Barklely looked good. Terrelle Pryor looked….ugh. I love TP though and I’m pulling for him.

- The Georgia Tech offense is bringing sexy back, aka, the Option. Expect the Nebraska Cornhuskers of old to be back in two years.

- Greg Paulus is good and I don’t care what anyone else says.

- Forget what you heard, the Heisman is Jahvid Best’s to lose.

- I am Sooner born and Sooner bred, which means I don’t care when OSU loses, I wish people would stop associating the OSU Cowboys with the entire state of Oklahoma’s football.

- The ‘Ol Ball Coach is an old ball coach.

- Did you say something Lane Kiffin, I couldn’t hear you.

- Thank God for Onterrio McCalebb, because after Andre Debose went out, I didn’t know which Freshman stud I’d develop my man crush for.

- The Eagles look really good, and Mike Vick didn’t even play.

- Google Adrian Peterson + Eric Wright, as soon as possible.

- Why the hell didn’t I take Drew Brees as my QB in my fantasy league.

- Mark Sanchez ‘09 = Matt Ryan ‘08?

- Damn…not B. Lach…not this soon! Why?

- No T.O., the offensive explosion of Tony Romo and late season meltdowns must go on!

Yo…that’s all I got,

Ricky Writer