Early Wednesday Random Thoughts.....

Our first two deaths of note for 2011:

1) Gerry Rafferty--I owned several 45s of his music in the late 70s; he was easily one of the most underrated male pop vocalists of that era. One reason? Radio played "Baker Street" to death and ignored other songs that were as good or better (Home and Dry, Get It Right Next Time, Right Down The Line, The Royal Mile....). I suspect some thought all these years he was a one-hit wonder. Only 63. Sad.

2) Hanover County loses a fixture as Gospel Chickenhouse founder Ray Pollard passed away at age 89. I remember it opening in Montpelier in the 1970s and going there as a little boy and all the excitement that little idea on a farm generated then, and continues to do so. Ray may be with the angels, but the ministry, I hope, will keep on rolling (if I may use an egg analogy).

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TV, RADIO, INTERNET, et al.......CUT the Christmas commercials. NOW! I'm sick of Lexus and Hyundai specifically. It's January 5th. That "December to Remember"? Only a memory now, guys. Enough is enough.

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Congrats to Jason Paige for becoming the new Production Director over at Main Line Broadcasting (The Wolf, Liberty, Big Oldies). Good find. I would have loved to have been offered the position, but alas. One day my ship WILL come in.

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Note to ESPN---I am available to fill Ron Franklin's position, and will refuse to call any woman there "sugarcakes" or whatever it was he was stupid enough to say. Good Lord, it's 2011, not 1911!

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There MUST be more worry than being let on in public around inner NFL circles about a possible work stoppage in 2011. In any other year, with so many coaches on the grill, would we see this little activity? No. Marvin Lewis? Gone. Gary Kubiak? Probably out. Jack Del Rio? Maybe.

But instead, Minnesota keeps their interim (good move!), Dallas may end up doing the same, Carolina is looking at some OC's and DC's around the league, while Jacksonville, Houston, and, shockingly, Cincinnati are staying put. And the name Bill Cowher is not coming up much at all.

All of this non-action is telling me that things aren't as sure-fire for an eventual deal as this fan would hope.

The NFL has THE BEST thing going in sports today, bar none. No one comes close. For the love of Pete (Rozelle), how could these sides NOT go in and just hammer out an agreement to keep this money machine rolling.

Because if they DO have a work stoppage and even the pre-season is affected, it will affect the NFL. They are playing with so much dynamite it isn't funny. Please, do not add 2011 to 1982 and 1987.

Just ask the NHL what cancelling a season does........
Or baseball canning a World Series in the middle of a hot pennant race......

Enjoy the playoffs, gang. It could be all for awhile.

UPDATE: NFL Top 100 from below post

I think I figured out the 10th player: Don Hutson

NFL's Top 100 Players----Top 10 Revealed Tonight

It's on at 9pm here on the East Coast.

I've figured out nine of the ten:

Jim Brown
Johnny Unitas
Joe Montana
Jerry Rice
Reggie White
Walter Payton
Lawrence Taylor
Dick Butkus
Peyton Manning

....but I can't figure out #10. I thought Sammy Baugh, who came in at #14, deserved to be in the top 10, and not Peyton Manning. Peyton never punted, never intercepted a pass, and only has one title.

Rob's Fearless 2010 NFL Predictions

Everybody else does 'em..........so why not? :)

You'll see predicted order of finish for each division, wild card choices, Conference Championship Game picks, and my fearless (probably way off) Super Bowl XLV prediction at the end. You can't stand the suspense, can you? :)

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NFC East

1) Dallas Cowboys
2) New York Giants
3) Philadelphia Eagles
4) Washington Redskins

NFC North

1) Green Bay Packers
2) Minnesota Vikings
3) Detroit Lions
4) Chicago Bears

NFC South

1) New Orleans Saints
2) Atlanta Falcons
3) Carolina Panthers
4) Tampa Bay Buccaneers

NFC West

1) San Francisco 49ers
2) Arizona Cardinals
3) Seattle Seahawks
4) St. Louis Rams

DIVISION CHAMPS: Dallas, Green Bay, New Orleans, San Francisco
WILD CARDS: Atlanta, Minnesota

NFC CHAMPIONSHIP GAME: Green Bay over Atlanta

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AFC EAST:

1) New England Patriots
2) New York Jets
3) Miami Dolphins
4) Buffalo Bills

AFC NORTH:

1) Baltimore Ravens
2) Pittsburgh Steelers
3) Cleveland Browns
4) Cincinnati Bengals

AFC SOUTH:

1) Indianapolis Colts
2) Tennessee Titans
3) Houston Texans
4) Jacksonville Jaguars

AFC WEST:

1) San Diego Chargers
2) Kansas City Chiefs
3) Denver Broncos
4) Oakland Raiders

DIVISION CHAMPS: New England, Baltimore, Indianapolis, San Diego
WILD CARDS: Tennessee, Houston

AFC CHAMPIONSHIP GAME: Indianapolis over Baltimore

SUPER BOWL XLV: Indianapolis over Green Bay


NOTES:

---I have been on the Green Bay bandwagon for a Super Bowl Champ pick until tonight. I heard someone on TV (that's dangerous) talk about Peyton Manning having a bad taste in his mouth after the Saints' loss. With Bob Sanders and Anthony Gonzalez returning, a DEEP receiving corp, Donald Brown emerging in the run game, and Freeney sacking QB's, I can now see Peyton making this a season of redemption for that team. I wouldn't want to be in their way. Thus, my last minute migration to the Colts in a rematch of that wild preseason shootout, won, ironically, by Green Bay.

QUICK THOUGHTS ON EACH TEAM:

DALLAS: They're talented, but Wade Phillips is their coach. That means a playoff appearance and exit.

NEW YORK GIANTS: What happened to their defense? And their running game? I only picked them 2nd in the division because.....

PHILADELPHIA: Kevin Kolb jerseys won't be flying off the shelves as Christmas presents this year. Can Mike Bell and LeShon McCoy save him? Doubt it. And Vick isn't the answer, either.

WASHINGTON: Lucky to get five wins. Shanahan is in for a LONG year. McNabb will probably miss 7 or 8 games due to injury. Another lost season in DC.

GREEN BAY: See paragraph on Super Bowl.

MINNESOTA: It's possible Brett Favre won't even throw a TD pass to Sidney Rice this season. By the time Rice gets back from injury, Favre may be on the shelf. He won't last 17 weeks. BTW, I'm really rooting for Toby Gearhart to do well, I really liked his power running style at Stanford last season.

DETROIT: If they were in the NFC West, they'd challenge for the division crown. Jahvid Best is a stud, and Stafford takes the next step.

CHICAGO: Who does Cutler throw it to, when he's not throwing it to the other team? Knox? Hester? Not impressed. This may be Lovie's swansong, which sucks because I admire him.....alot. He can come to Oakland after we fire Cable. :)

NEW ORLEANS: Offense keeps clicking, but defense won't be the same without Darren Sharper. And they better not lose Brees. Can you name their #2 QB?

ATLANTA: My comeback pick for 2010. Healthy Turner and Ryan to go with White, Gonzalez, et al, and I think they'll do very well. Of course, I picked Atlanta to play Pittsburgh in Super Bowl XLIV....shows what I know. :)

CAROLINA: Matt Moore. My jury is out. RB's keep getting hurt, and I'm ticked they didn't keep Josh Vaughn (Hermitage, U of R).

TAMPA BAY: Quick---name their wideouts.

SAN FRANCISCO: I LOVE Mike Singletary. Alex Smith? It's time for him to put up or shut up. A healthy season out of Frank Gore will do wonders.

ARIZONA: Good move cutting Leinart. Bad news? You're left with Derek Anderson. I may regret picking Larry Fitzgerald for one of my fantasy teams.....

SEATTLE: They only finish third because.....

ST. LOUIS: With the first pick in the 2011 NFL Draft.......

NEW ENGLAND: If Randy Moss pulls an Oakland on them, they'll be fine with Welker and Edelman. Defense is young.....but I think that's a positive.

NEW YORK JETS: MOST, MOST, MOST overrated team of 2010. The Colts try to win their regular season game and the Jets aren't even in the playoffs. They jettison leaders like Thomas Jones, Leon Washington, and Alan Faneca, give Revis the preseason off basically, and Rex Ryan can't shut up. 9-7 tops, 8-8 more likely.

MIAMI: I can't get fired up over Chad Henne. If he does better than I think he will, this team might finish 2nd instead of the Jets, but neither make the playoffs.

BUFFALO: Edwards can throw the deep ball. C.J. Spiller is a stud. But who's blocking?

BALTIMORE: My alternate AFC Super Bowl choice. Flacco has so many weapons now. Imagine the Ravens DEFENSE being the question mark......wow.

PITTSBURGH: They survive September, get Ben back, and still miss the playoffs. They will be a tough win for anyone who does get the "W" over them. Love Mike Tomlin.

CLEVELAND: Delhomme has a one-year resurgence, and Josh Cribbs runs up and down every field he can find. But it's only enough for six wins.

CINCINNATI: One word---MELTDOWN. Second most overrated team of the year. T.O. and Chad won't survive the season together, and Cedric Benson? Well, I'll believe him when I see him duplicate '09. Prediction: Marvin Lewis is out after lackluster, super-disappointing season.

INDIANAPOLIS: See Super Bowl paragraph......

TENNESSEE: Watch out. I really think Vince Young is ready and Kenny Britt is going to explode onto the scene this year. This is a gut call, but I trust Jeff Fisher. He wouldn't have placed so much hope in Young if he didn't know a payoff was coming.

HOUSTON: Will battle Tennessee for 2nd in the division, but both teams make the playoffs by winning their NFC matchups and games outside the division.

JACKSONVILLE: Sorry, Jack. Jones-Drew can't do it all; they go 0-6 in the division.

SAN DIEGO: They win the division by default. Norv Turner is their coach, which guarantees a playoff exit (See: Dallas and Wade Phillips above).

KANSAS CITY: Jamaal Charles gets help from Thomas Jones, takes some pressure off Matt Cassell, and their running game helps turn the franchise around to a seven-win season.

DENVER: Calling Tim Tebow. How about the resurrection of John Elway? It's gonna get ugly in the Rockies.

OAKLAND: Boy, I really want my boys to improve, but, even with Jason Campbell at QB, the wideouts are STILL Murphy and Heyward-Bey and Darren McFadden is still in uniform. McClain looks good, and at least Russell and Fargas are gone. Still another 10 plus loss season, though.

So, what do YOU think? :)

My 2009 NFL Predictions....

Hey, why not? Everyone else does? :) :)

NFC:

NFC East--Philadelphia
NFC North--Green Bay
NFC South--Atlanta
NFC West--San Francisco
NFC Wild Card Berths--Chicago and New Orleans

NFC CHAMPION: Atlanta

AFC:

AFC East--New England
AFC North--Pittsburgh
AFC South--Houston
AFC West--San Diego
AFC Wild Card Berths--Baltimore and Tennessee

AFC CHAMPION: Pittsburgh


SUPER BOWL XLIV: Pittsburgh over Atlanta

2010 Draft--#1 pick to the Oakland Raiders!

#2--Cleveland
#3--Buffalo
#4--St. Louis
#5--Detroit

Oh, and Brett Favre won't make the trip to Green Bay in early November. He'll either be hurt or will have retired for the 38th time.

Let the football begin!!!

Hillary dissed Iowans, Bill disses New Hampshire....in New Hampshire!

Yeah, he did. Read here.

Do you think he ever would have said this if Hillary were where everyone just knew she would be on this night? Which was an overwhelming favorite to win?

NFL teams don't blame their schedule for missing the playoffs. They know the rules and how the schedules pan out. It's based on their performance from the previous season.

Bill knew Iowa was immediately followed by New Hampshire.

Deal with it, Bill.

I know it looks like I'm piling on the Clintons (I can't stand them for sure, but that's another story); but they are the ones handing out the best blogging material from the Granite State.

What's next about South Carolina that they can blame South Carolinians about?? Good Lord.

Hey, Bro----here's a throwback TV moment!

Memo to the NFL: Something is wrong here....

On my links, I include "where I go to make sure I'm not dead". This would be Legacy.com. I check it every day or so because sometimes, people you know don't always get much press when they pass away (especially figures in the Christian community).

This obituary caught my eye, then made me upset.

So, a generation ago, a solid member of a pro football champion, Jerry Kramer of the Green Bay Packers was making good money for 1967, at $27 to $28K a year. And then, as life after football continued, Kramer himself watched a gross inequity grow and grow between the players of the 1950s and 1960s, who saw the NFL through the AAFC, battling baseball for popularity, the 1958 Championship Game, the AFL's arrival, the likes of Joe Namath heading to the AFL, consistently bringing the best in pro football during the two decades that really set the NFL in a position to be the pro sports juggernaut that it is today (breath!), and the players of, say the 1990's and this decade, when average salaries reached and well exceeded $500K annually, and with a salary cap for each team expected to be $109 million for 2007.

So Kramer began to do something about it. Read about it here.

Kramer was fortunate that his career was with a championship team and he was able to earn the raises he received. BUT, make sure you read the portion of the article discussing Kramer's NFL personal pension history. If at age 62, Kramer's monthly benefit went to $158 monthly, had bad could it be for others?

Well, then we find the average joes of the old days of pro football, like George Webster. What? Never heard of George Webster? Don't have his Topps card?

Webster died April 19th, as the above obituary link says. It also chronicled his frustrating and futile attempt to "prove" his disability was due to football injuries. If you lost the use of most of one hand, one knee, one ankle, and one foot, how would it impact your employment? Your ability to provide for a family? Heck, your ability to do whatever, job-related or otherwise?

Yet, he was never "ruled" to be eligible for football-related injury benefits. So, in spite of playing 10 seasons in the NFL, the league's retirement board decided his impairments didn't happen on the field, and later, the stinking U.S. Supreme Court agreed.

Then he loses a leg, and five years later, passes at the young age of 61, his monthly "disability" benefit less than 20 percent of what it should have been.

The average NFL career is only four, maybe five seasons. He played ten, yet all of these medical problems weren't created or exacerbated by being on the football field.

I know, I hear you:

1) He should have invested his money better!
2) Didn't he lose lots of money in the court proceedings that he could have had to live on?

My argument has nothing to do with any of that. My argument is this:

Rookie Mark Anderson, DE for the Chicago Bears, was a Round 5 choice in 2006 and came on big with 12 sacks for Da Bears. The average fifth round rookie salary for 2006 was $131,000. He'll probably make more than that in 2007.

Good for him!!!

The league must answer this: if 32 teams can spend over $3.2 BILLION dollars on player salaries alone, imagine how much money the league itself has, and makes.

But they have a retirement board who looked at Webster and balked at paying him an extra $39K a year, most of which probably would have been eaten up by medical bills.

The NFL can't afford a few million dollars to take a little better care of the men who carried the league to the point where they began to emerge as the top dog in pro sports?

Each team drops that salary cap to $108 million dollars, and the league cough up $10 million more, and I suspect the George Websters still with us could be a little better taken care of. Use most to increase pensions, and invest some, too!

$42 million dollars from a league whose current TV deal is worth $3.75 BILLION dollars annually? And there are other revenue streams, too?

Pittance to them.
More power to the pension.

An observation after this particular Sunday......

.....I really, really, really, really, really, really, really miss the National Football League.

And once my favorite event, The NCAA Tournament ends, I hit bottom.

And begin to count the days until the first training camp opens, and visions of fantasy football magazines dance in my head.

Hang on like-minded, we'll make it to late July!!!!