Bleacher Report - Articles by jim warden

Manny Ramirez and Pro Sports Heading for Reality Check

jim warden — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 16:15:23 -0500

The day is near when the American sports nation will go in hibernation spending hard earned dollars on anything to do with major league sports. Athletes salaries are a joke and need a reality check.

At one end of the spectrum, we have rookie first rounders becoming instant mega-millionaires without a professional play on their resumes. The other end has the Manny Ramirez's of the world turning down $25,000,000.00 for one year (season) of (work).

Please don't insult the hard-working fan anymore. The age of greed is over. Television advertisers are trimming budgets. Corporate sponsorships are being withdrawn. Executive expense accounts are shrinking. Accountability is finally becoming in vogue.

Currently a family of four will spend on average $800.00 to attend an NFL game. For 95 percent of Americans, this is not possible. Professional sports has become elitist, a good time to be had on the company tab. The corporate well is about to go dry and teams will not be able to honor these outrageous contracts because revenues will decline, especially television rights sharing.

It will once again be a privilege to play at the professional level where the athlete is a role model and not a rich,spoiled ego maniac who's spent a life of being pampered and kowtowed to by colleges and professional teams because they can play a game or hit a ball or score a goal.

May the recession last long enough to get rid of the Plaxico's of the world and the out of touch agents who insult our intelligence and have made professional sports a game of the rich for the rich.

How the NFL Needs to Support Early Draft Declarers

jim warden — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 13:50:18 -0500

Once again, the time has arrived for underclassmen to declare early for the NFL draft. The decision to withdraw from school and forfeit any remaining eligibility is based on the "experts'" opinion on draft position and the corresponding monetary reward.

Stop it! This is a farce. For every success, four will fail. Full scholarships to well-respected universities squandered. Yes, this is America, the land of opportunity. But to encourage student-athletes to abandon school for quick riches is bad policy.

What to do? The solution is simple and uncontroversial: Any underclassman declaring early for the draft must be in good standing at school with a pre-determined number of credit hours passed and a minimum grade point average attained.

No exceptions.

Furthermore, the NFL should institute a policy mandating continuing education as terms of employment, paid for by the respective team. Other players with no college eligibility left and no degree earned should be included or at least given the option.

Lastly, all signing bonuses should be structured so 50 percent of the money is deferred until the degree is earned. In this way, the four out of five early declarers who have failed or had injury-shortened or mediocre careers have an incentive to get their degrees.

So, the time HAS arrived. A spade called a spade. Full scholarships awarded to get a degree, a chance to succeed through the discipline learned in achieving a college education, not an NFL contract.

Super Bowl or Super Bore?

jim warden — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 13:45:30 -0500

Let the water cooler experts rejoice.

The NFL Playoffs have produced two worthy teams in Pittsburgh and Arizona. There are many storylines that will elicit chatter, predictions, and philosophical reasoning about who will be crowned champion.

Pittsburgh will dominate this game, creating multiple turnovers and scoring two defensive/special teams touchdowns on their way to a 34-13 rout.

It's the Cardinals, people. They can't run, so they will pass. Unlike the Panthers coaching staff, the Steelers will game plan for wide receivers Larry Fitzgerald and Anquan Boldin. That leaves quarterback Kurt Warner, who, while good at picking up the blitz, will be left to little dink/screen passes, rarely gaining more than five yards.

Quarterback Ben Roethlisberger will have his usual stat line and benefit from tremendous field position every quarter. The Arizona defense, while stellar during the last three weeks, will tire early on and get run over in the last 20 minutes of the game.

Result? A super bore.

Saints Game a Prelude To Debacle ?

jim warden — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 15:34:28 -0500

Last minute of our last game vs. New Orleans. We call time out with six seconds left to kick the go-ahead field goal. The TV "expert analysts " question the decision because NFL policy is to let up to five seconds run off the clock on any given field goal attempt.

This means if the field goal is good the Panthers would still have to kick the ball back to New Orleans. The field goal was good and the Panthers had to kick it off with one second left.

Incredibly, our kick off man, a specialist who only kicks off, kicks the ball out of bounds for the first time this season. This allows New Orleans one last play. Drew Brees needs only 16 yards to pass Marino as the all-time record holder for passing yards gained in one season. He promptly throws one in the turf to his wide open receiver and game is over. We win and Marino's record is safe.

Clearly, our coaching staff orchestrated this scenario by purposely calling time out early. They wanted, out of niceness and polite consideration, to give Brees a shot at the record apparently confident we would win regardless.

Brees, the class act that he is, wanted no part of a record earned by another team "laying down" and thus threw the pass away.

Why does this matter? It shows the Panthers' coaching staff that's cocky, over-confident, and totally not respecting an opponent. The Panthers had two weeks to prepare for Arizona. The Panthers' players were not ready because the coaches clearly were not focused.

That last minute of the New Orleans game was a harbinger for the debacle of last Saturday night. It's not Jake, the defense (yes, even our secondary), or the running game. It was the arrogant, over-confident coaching staff, having no respect for an opponent that led to our mental collapse and thus our worst loss ever.