Grittin’ My Teeth

You know what’s got me grittin’ my teeth…

• Fantasy football drafts. Don’t get me wrong, I love fantasy football but damn, the drafts can get really intense and frustrating. You usually go into the draft knowing a few players that you want to target and work your way through the draft in order to obtain them. Finally you are just  few picks away and your candidate is still on the boards, it seems as if you will be able to draft the player of your choice. BOOM ROASTED! Just when things seems to be working out somebody decides to pick up the player you wanted. Great! Now you are left dazzled and scrambling to find another player to draft, none seeming anywhere near as appealing as your first choice. Finally you make the pick and have to sit there wondering, was that the correct choice? The frustrating part about this is that this whole process will most likely happen a few more times throughout the draft. If you’re lucky, you may just end up with a good looking team.
• Philip Rivers not being considered one of the best. I know most people put him in their top 10 QB list but I am very adamant on the idea of him being considered a top 5 quarterback. Let’s take a look at some of the players that tend to be placed ahead of Rivers: Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, Brett Favre, Drew Brees, Aaron Rodgers and sometimes even Matt Schaub, Tony Romo and Ben Roethlisberger. Out of that list there are only three quarterbacks that I would, at this point in time, put in front of Rivers and that is Manning, Brees and Rodgers. Manning is just Manning and he is just so good that you can never doubt him. Brees has been putting up huge numbers in New Orleans and just won a Super Bowl. Finally Rodgers looks like he could be the next elite quarterback, but I actually believe him and Rivers are on a similar level and stated that both will account for the next era of elite QBs in The Future of NFL Shot Calling. Now this is where the arguments begin. Most people would not place Rivers in the next two spots of the top 5 list and I have argued this point with many, including some of my fellow writers here at PMB. Favre and Brady are legends but I honestly believe they are somewhat irrelevant now. Okay maybe irrelevant is too strong of a word, I mean Favre did just have one of his best years and Brady has won 3 championships. Either way, Rivers led the league in QB rating in 2008 and was 3rd in 2009 and over the past years has thrown 62 touchdowns to only 20 interceptions. He has led his team into the playoffs and with a declining LaDainian Tomlinson had assumed the leadership role. It is true that Rivers has many weapons but LT was declining under Norv Turner’s scheme and Vincent Jackson didn’t break out until his 4th season and this was party due to Rivers. Antonio Gates was the only consistent weapon that Rivers had along his path to becoming the Charger leader. Everyone is entitled to their own QB opinions but I truly believe Rivers deserves more credit and this would be my opinion even if San Diego wasn’t my home team.

• The crappy San Diego Padres coverage. Yes, another San Diego topic but they come up a lot seeing that I reside there. The Padres have been having a fairytale season and nobody expected them to be in 1st place at this point in the season, actually I’m sure most people doubted that they would ever hold that 1st place in the NL West. Until a few weeks ago, they were the best team in the National League and were only trailing the New York Yankees and Tampa Bay Rays in all of baseball. Even with this great success, there was not much talk about the Padres. You would rarely see them in headlines on major sports websites or on ESPN. Then all of a sudden they hit a 10-game losing steak and the press couldn’t get enough of them. Whenever I’d browse through Yahoo Sports, ESPN.com and watch shows on ESPN, there would be headlines about the Padres’ skid. It is sad and frustrating that San Diego had to go on 10-game slump in order to get that much attention. Everyone knows they have a great pitching staff but how about the press start giving more props to the whole team and start creating some positive headlines about them.

This is just an opinion, so please…Pardon My Bias.